R-process

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In nuclear astrophysics, the rapid neutron-capture process, also known as the r-process, is a set of nuclear reactions that is responsible for the creation of approximately half of the atomic nuclei heavier than iron, the "heavy elements", with the other half produced by the p-process and s-process. The r-process usually synthesizes the most neutron-rich stable isotopes of each heavy element. The r-process can typically synthesize the heaviest four isotopes of every heavy element; of these, the heavier two are called r-only nuclei because they are created exclusively via the r-process. Abundance peaks for the r-process occur near mass numbers A = 82 (elements Se, Br, and Kr), A = 130 (elements Te, I, and Xe) and A = 196 (elements Os, Ir, and Pt).

The r-process entails a succession of rapid neutron captures (hence the name) by one or more heavy seed nuclei, typically beginning with nuclei in the abundance peak centered on ⁵⁶Fe. The captures must be rapid in the sense that the nuclei must not have time to undergo radioactive decay (typically via β⁻ decay) before another neutron arrives to be captured. This sequence can continue up to the limit of stability of the increasingly neutron-rich nuclei (the neutron drip line) to physically retain neutrons as governed by the short range nuclear force. The r-process therefore must occur in locations where there exists a high density of free neutrons.

Early studies theorized that 10²⁴ free neutrons per cm³ would be required, for temperatures of about 1 GK, in order to match the waiting points, at which no more neutrons can be captured, with the mass numbers of the abundance peaks for r-process nuclei.^[1] This amounts to almost a gram of free neutrons in every cubic centimeter, an astonishing number requiring extreme locations.^[a] Traditionally this suggested the material ejected from the reexpanded core of a core-collapse supernova, as part of supernova nucleosynthesis,^[2] or decompression of neutron star matter thrown off by a binary neutron star merger in a kilonova.^[3] The relative contribution of each of these sources to the astrophysical abundance of r-process elements is a matter of ongoing research as of 2018^[update].^[4]

A limited r-process-like series of neutron captures occurs to a minor extent in thermonuclear weapon explosions. These led to the discovery of the elements einsteinium (element 99) and fermium (element 100) in nuclear weapon fallout.

The r-process contrasts with the s-process, the other predominant mechanism for the production of heavy elements, which is nucleosynthesis by means of slow captures of neutrons. In general, isotopes involved in the s-process have half-lives long enough to enable their study in laboratory experiments, but this is not typically true for isotopes involved in the r-process.^[5] The s-process primarily occurs within ordinary stars, particularly AGB stars, where the neutron flux is sufficient to cause neutron captures to recur every 10–100 years, much too slow for the r-process, which requires 100 captures per second. The s-process is secondary, meaning that it requires pre-existing heavy isotopes as seed nuclei to be converted into other heavy nuclei by a slow sequence of captures of free neutrons. The r-process scenarios create their own seed nuclei, so they might proceed in massive stars that contain no heavy seed nuclei. Taken together, the r- and s-processes account for almost the entire abundance of chemical elements heavier than iron. The historical challenge has been to locate physical settings appropriate to their time scales.

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