Mainz 2012 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 31: Nukleare Astrophysik

HK 31.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 17:30–17:45, RW 2

Nuclear correlations and the r-process — •Almudena Arcones^1,2,3 and George F. Bertsch⁴ — ¹Technische Universitaet Darmstadt Institut fuer Kernphysik (Theoriezentrum) Schlossgartenstr. 2, 64289 Darmstadt — ²Department of Physics, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 82, 4056 Basel, Switzerland — ³GSI Helmholtzzentrum fuer Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt — ⁴Department of Physics and Institute for Nuclear Theory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98915, USA

We show that long-range correlations for nuclear masses have a significant effect on the synthesis of heavy elements by the r-process. As calculated by Delaroche et al., these correlations suppress magic number effects associated with minor shells. This impacts the calculated abundances before the third r-process peak (at mass number A=195), where the abundances are low and form a trough. This trough and the position of the third abundance peak are strongly affected by the masses of nuclei in the transition region between deformed and spherical. Based on different astrophysical environments, our results demonstrate that a microscopic theory of nuclear masses including correlations naturally smoothens the separation energies, thus reducing the trough and improving the agreement with observed solar system abundances.