Bulletin of the American Physical Society
85th Annual Meeting of the APS Southeastern Section
Volume 63, Number 19
Thursday–Saturday, November 8–10, 2018; Holiday Inn at World’s Fair Park, Knoxville, Tennessee
Session A02: Nuclear Astrophysics of the R-Process |
Hide Abstracts |
Chair: Alfredo Galindo, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Room: Holiday Inn Knoxville Downtown Cumberland |
Thursday, November 8, 2018 8:30AM - 9:00AM |
A02.00001: Nuclear Astrophysics in the new era of multi-messenger Astronomy Invited Speaker: Jorge Piekarewicz One of the overarching questions animating nuclear physics today is "How does subatomic matter organize itself". Neutron stars are cosmic laboratories uniquely poised to answer this fundamental question. The historical first detection of a binary neutron star merger by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration is providing fundamental new insights into the astrophysical site for the r-process and on the nature of neutron-rich matter. Constraints on the tidal polarizability inferred from the gravitational wave signal translate into limits on the neutron-star radius and, perhaps surprisingly, also on the neutron-rich skin of atomic nuclei. However, these limits are significantly lower than those extracted from laboratory experiments. If the upcoming experimental campaigns together with LIGO-Virgo third operating run confirm these results, this may provide evidence in favor of a phase transition in the interior of neutron stars. |
Thursday, November 8, 2018 9:00AM - 9:30AM |
A02.00002: Experimental Approaches for Constraining Nuclear Contributions to R-Process Uncertainties Invited Speaker: Kelly A. Chipps Our understanding of the r-process depends upon both the uncertainties in the astrophysical environments and the uncertainties in the nuclear reactions taking place in those environments. The location of the r-process path on the chart of nuclides varies with the different astrophysical conditions, such as the "cold" r-process in neutron star mergers or the "hot" r-process in neutrino-driven winds from core-collapse supernovae, because of the differing temperatures, pressures, and neutron fluxes. Final, observable r-process abundances can vary significantly based on the conditions in which they were formed, but interpretation of this variation requires precise knowledge of the masses, decay modes, level structure, and neutron-capture cross sections of the nuclei along a particular r-process path. This talk will focus on several techniques being developed and employed to better constrain some of the nuclear physics parameters which contribute to improved predictions of r-process abundances. |
Thursday, November 8, 2018 9:30AM - 10:00AM |
A02.00003: Nuclear and neutrino physics of the r-process Invited Speaker: Gail C McLaughlin The production of the elements heavier than iron in the universe has long been associated with neutron-capture processes. The most neutron-rich isotopes are created by rapid (r ) neutron-capture nucleosynthesis in extreme astrophysical environments. Specifics of these environments and the location of the astrophysical sites in which the r process occurs have remained open problems. It has been reported that observations of the gravitational wave event GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterpart suggest that neutron star mergers are a site of r-process nucleosynthesis. Still many questions remain, such as the nature of the astrophysical conditions within the merger responsible for element synthesis and whether mergers can account for all galactic r-process production. If we hope to fully understand the connection between this discovery and the origin of r-process elements, uncertainties in neutrino and nuclear astrophysics must be reduced. I will highlight the role played by neutrinos and nuclear masses. |
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700