The nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in the scenario for the evolution of a close binary of neutron stars differing greatly in mass is considered. In contrast to the scenario for the merger of two neutron stars of comparable masses considered repeatedly in the literature, the evolution of such a binary at the final stage consists in a rapid mass transfer to the more massive star and an explosive disruption of the low-mass component. We provide the details of the explosion and calculate the abundances of the heavy elements produced in this process for various initial conditions.
The relativistic hydrodynamics equations are adapted for the spherically symmetric case and the Lagrangian form. They are used to model the explosive disruption of a minimum-mass neutron star: a key ingredient of the stripping model for short gamma-ray bursts. The shock breakout from the neutron star surface accompanied by the acceleration of matter to ultrarelativistic velocities is studied. A comparison with the results of previously published nonrelativistic calculations is made.
We explore heavy element nucleosynthesis in the explosion of massive stars which are triggered by a quark-hadron phase transition during the early post bounce phase of core-collapse supernovae. The present study is based on general relativistic radiation hydrodynamics simulations with three-flavor Boltzmann neutrino transport in spherical symmetry, which utilize a quark-hadron hybrid equation of state based on the MIT bag model for strange quark matter. The quark-hadron phase transition inside the stellar core forms a shock wave propagating towards the surface of the proto-neutron star. The sh…
We study the change in internal rotational energy in the transformation of protons to neutrons in the \b{eta}-decay reactions that take place in the collapse of the iron core of massive stars that precede type II supernova explosions. We consider an ensemble of electrons, protons, neutrons and neutrinos undergoing \b{eta}-decay reactions, treat the protons and neutrons as triatomic rotors, evaluate the equilibrium constant to obtain the change in rotational energy during the proton-to-neutron transformation. We estimate such change for a variety of conditions, and compare to the energy release…
The possibility to produce superheavy elements in the course of low-yield nuclear explosions is analyzed within a simple kinetic model which includes neutron capture, gamma-emission, fission and particle evaporation from excited nuclei. We have calculated average numbers of absorbed neutrons as well as mass distributions of U and Cm nuclei exposed to an impulsive neutron flux, as functions of its duration. It is demonstrated that detectable amounts of heavy nuclei absorbing from 20 to 60 neutrons may be produced in this process. According to an optimistic scenario, after multiple beta-decay su…
The gravitational collapse, bounce, the explosion of an iron core of an 11.2 $M_{\odot}$ star is simulated by two-dimensional neutrino-radiation hydrodynamic code. The explosion is driven by the neutrino heating aided by multi-dimensional hydrodynamic effects such as the convection. Following the explosion phase, we continue the simulation focusing on the thermal evolution of the protoneutron star up to $\sim$70 s when the crust of the neutron star is formed using one-dimensional simulation. We find that the crust forms at high-density region ($ρ\sim10^{14}$ g cm$^{-3}$) and it would proceed f…
A general formula of the symmetry energy for many-body interaction is proposed and the commonly used two-body interaction symmetry energy is recovered. Within Landau's theory (Lt), we generalize two equations of state (EoS) CCS$δ$3 and CCS$δ$5 to asymmetric nuclear matter. We assume that the density and density difference between protons and neutrons divided by their sum are order parameters. We use different EoS to study neutron stars by solving the TOV equations. We demonstrate that different EoS give different mass and radius relation for neutron stars even when they have exactly the same g…
Within the minimum model of neutron stars (NS) consisting of neutrons, protons and electrons, a new approach is proposed for inferring the symmetry energy of super-dense neutron-rich nucleonic matter above twice the saturation density $ρ_0$ of nuclear matter directly from integrating iteratively barotropic pressures in both neutron stars and heavy-ion reactions. Simultaneously, the proton fraction of NSs at $β$ equilibrium is extracted as a function of baryon density from the same procedure. An application of this approach using the NS pressure from GW170817 and the pressure in cold symmetric …
The creation of transuranium nuclides under pulsed neutron fluxes of thermonuclear explosions is investigated within the kinetic model of the astrophysical r process, taking into account the time dependence of the external parameters and the processes accompanying the beta decay of neutron-rich nuclei. Time-dependent neutron fluxes in the interval ~ 10e-6 s were modeled within the framework of the developed adiabatic binary model. The probabilities of beta-delayed processes were calculated on the base of the microscopic theory of finite Fermi systems. Calculations of transuranium nuclides yiel…
Stars of ~8-100 solar masses end their lives as core-collapse supernovae (SNe). In the process they emit a powerful burst of neutrinos, produce a variety of elements, and leave behind either a neutron star or a black hole. The wide mass range for SN progenitors results in diverse neutrino signals, explosion energies, and nucleosynthesis products. A major mechanism to produce nuclei heavier than iron is rapid neutron capture, or the r process. This process may be connected to SNe in several ways. A brief review is presented on current understanding of neutrino emission, explosion, and nucleosyn…
We have studied nuclear fusion reactions from the Coulomb explosion of deuterium clusters induced by high-intensity laser beams within a transport approach. By incorporating the D+D $\rightarrow$ n + He$^3$ channel as inelastic collisions based on the stochastic method, we have calibrated the neutron yield from the simulation in a box system with that from the reaction rate equation. After justifying the Coulomb explosion of a single cluster by comparing results with available theoretical limits, we have then investigated the dynamics from Coulomb explosions of systems with different cluster n…
It is well known that in fusion reactions one may get only neutron deficient superheavy nuclei located far from the island of stability. The multi-nucleon transfer reactions allow one to produce more neutron enriched new heavy nuclei but the corresponding cross sections are rather low. Neutron capture process is considered here as alternative method for production of long-lived neutron rich superheavy nuclei. Strong neutron fluxes might be provided by nuclear reactors and nuclear explosions in laboratory frame and by supernova explosions in nature. All these cases are discussed in the paper.
Neutron-skins in coordinate space and proton-skins in momentum space are predicted to coexist in heavy nuclei and their correlation is governed by Liouville's theorem and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. An analysis of their correlation within a further extended Thomas-Fermi (ETF$^+$) approximation incorporating effects of nucleon short-range correlations reveals generally that protons move faster than neutrons in neutron-skins of heavy nuclei.
Interactions with neutrons and protons play a crucial role for the neutrino opacity of matter in the supernova core. Their current implementation in many simulation codes, however, is rather schematic and ignores not only modifications for the correlated nuclear medium of the nascent neutron star, but also free-space corrections from nucleon recoil, weak magnetism or strange quarks, which can easily add up to changes of several 10% for neutrino energies in the spectral peak. In the Garching supernova simulations with the Prometheus-Vertex code, such sophistications have been included for a lon…
The synthesis of hyper-heavy elements is investigated under conditions simulating neutron star environment. The Constrained Molecular Dynamics (CoMD) approach is used to simulate low energy collisions of extremely n-rich nuclei. A new type of the fusion barrier due to a "neutron wind" is observed when the effect of neutron star environment (screening of Coulomb interaction) is introduced implicitly. When introducing also a background of surrounding nuclei, the nuclear fusion becomes possible down to temperatures of 10$^{8}$ K and synthesis of extremely heavy and n-rich nuclei appears feasible.…
We study nuclear dynamics at the the energy of vanishing flow for neutron-rich systems. In particular, we shall study the collision rate, density and temperature reached in a heavy-ion reaction with neutron-rich systems. We shall also study the mass dependence of these quantities. Our results indicate nearly mass independent nature for the density reached whereas a significant mass dependence exists for the temperature of neutron-rich systems.
Magnetic monopoles, if they exist, would be produced amply in strong magnetic fields and high temperatures via the thermal Schwinger process. Such circumstances arise in heavy ion collisions and in neutron stars, both of which imply lower bounds on the mass of possible magnetic monopoles. In showing this, we construct the cross section for pair production of magnetic monopoles in heavy ion collisions, which indicates that they are particularly promising for experimental searches such as MoEDAL.
Muons can be created in nascent neutron stars (NSs) due to the high electron chemical potentials and the high temperatures. Because of their relatively lower abundance compared to electrons, their role has so far been ignored in numerical simulations of stellar core collapse and NS formation. However, the appearance of muons softens the NS equation of state, triggers faster NS contraction and thus leads to higher luminosities and mean energies of the emitted neutrinos. This strengthens the postshock heating by neutrinos and can facilitate explosions by the neutrino-driven mechanism.
In this paper, I have discussed the numerical predictions for the neutron-skin thickness (NST) of various finite nuclei starting from $^{40}$Ca to $^{238}$U using recently developed effective relativistic mean-field models G3 and IOPB-I \cite{G3, IOPB}. The calculated results are compared with the PREX-II data, and the experiment has been done with antiprotons at CERN. Further, I have also calculated the dimensional tidal deformability of a canonical neutron star 1.4$M_\odot$ and compared it with the recent observation of GW1701817.
We study the participant-spectator matter at the energy of vanishing flow for neutron-rich systems. Our study reveals similar behaviour of articipant-spectator for neutron-rich systems as for stable systems and also points towards nearly mass independence behaviour of participant-spectator matter for neutron-rich systems at the energy of vanishing flow. We also study the thermalization reached in the reactions of neutron-rich systems.
Based on the isospin-dependent quantum molecular dynamics model along with the GEMINI model, heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies are studied. We calculate the production cross sections of different fragments for reactions of 112Sn+112Sn and 124Sn+124Sn at different beam energies. The species and production cross sections of neutron-rich isotopes are generally dependent on the isospin of the system and the incident energies. The nucleon 48Ca and 54Ca are more productive for the neutron-rich system at 30 to 150 MeV/nucleon.
Pre-saddle neutron multiplicity has been calculated for several fission reactions induced by heavy ions and light particles. Experimentally, it is impossible to determine the contribution of neutrons being emitted before the saddle point and those emitted between the saddle and the scission points. Determination of the pre-saddle neutron multiplicity in our research is based on the comparison between the experimental anisotropies and those predicted by the standard saddle-point statistical model. Analysis of the results shows that the pre-saddle neutron multiplicity depends on the fission barr…
The multinucleon transfer reactions in collisions of $^{136}$Xe+$^{198}$Pt at incident energies $E_{\textrm{lab}}=$5.25, 6.20, 7.98, 10.0, and 15.0 MeV/nucleon are investigated by using the improved quantum molecular dynamics model. It is found that 6.20 MeV/nucleon is the optimal incident energy for producing the neutron-rich heavy nuclei. About 80 unknown neutron-rich nuclei might be produced in this reaction with cross sections from 10$^{-6}$ to 10$^{-2}$ mb. The angular distributions of the neutron-rich isotopes are predicted.
It is generally believed that isospin would diminish in its importance as we go towards heavy mass region due to isospin mixing caused by the growing Coulomb forces. However, it was realized quite early that isospin could become an important and useful quantum number for all nuclei including heavy nuclei due to neutron richness of the systems~\cite{robson}. Lane and Soper~\cite{lane} also showed in a theoretical calculation that isospin indeed remains quite good in heavy mass neutron rich systems. In this paper, we present isospin based calculations~\cite{jain,swati} for the fission fragment d…
The microscopic justification of the emergence of SU(3) symmetry in heavy nuclei remains an interesting problem. In the past, the pseudo-SU(3) approach has been used, with considerable success. Recent results seem to suggest that the key for understanding the emergence of SU(3) symmetry lies in the properties of the proton-neutron interaction, namely in the formation of (S=1, T=0) p-n pairs in heavy nuclei, especially when the numbers of valence protons and valence neutrons are nearly equal. Although this idea has been around for many years, since the introduction of the Federman-Pittel mechan…
The mechanism of multinucleon transfer (MNT) reactions for producing neutron-rich heavy nuclei around N = 126 is investigated within two different theoretical frameworks: dinuclear system (DNS) model and isospin-dependent quantum molecular dynamics (IQMD) model. The effects of mass asymmetry relaxation, N=Z equilibration, and shell closures on production cross sections of neutron-rich heavy nuclei are investigated. For the first time, the advantages for producing neutron-rich heavy nuclei around N = 126 is found in MNT reactions based on 238U target. We propose the reactions with 238U target f…
The neutron skin and halo distributions in medium and heavy nuclei are calculated within the extended Thomas-Fermi approximation. Calculations are carried out for the effective Skyrme-like forces using the direct variational method. The analytical expression for the isovector shift of the rms radii $Δr_{np}$ as a sum of skin- and halo-like terms is obtained. The contribution of halo and skin terms to $Δr_{np}$ are found to be approximately equal.
The formation of $α$-particle clusters on the surface of heavy nuclei is described in a generalized relativistic mean-field model with explicit cluster degrees of freedom. The effects on the size of the neutron skin of Sn nuclei and ${}^{208}$Pb are investigated as a function of the mass number and the isospin-dependent part of the effective interaction, respectively. The correlation of the neutron skin thickness with the difference of the neutron and proton numbers and with the slope of the nuclear symmetry energy is modified as compared to the mean-field calculation without alpha-cluster cor…
With the computational power and algorithmic improvements available today, the ongoing STAR/RHIC and HADES/GSI experiments, the future FAIR and NICA facilities becoming operational, and the new precise measurements from NICER and LIGO/VIRGO, the high-energy nuclear physics and astrophysics communities are in the unique position to set very stringent constraints on the equation of state of strongly interacting matter. We review the state-of-the-art of different approaches used in the description of hot and ultradense baryonic matter in and out of equilibrium, and discuss the regions in the phas…
Constraints on the Equation of State for symmetric matter (equal neutron and proton numbers) have been extracted from energetic collisions of heavy ions over a range of energies. Collisions of neutron-deficient and neutron-rich heavy ions now provide initial constraints on the EoS of neutron-rich matter at sub-saturation densities from isospin diffusions and neutron proton ratios. This article reviews the experimental constraints on the density dependence of Symmetry Energy at sub-saturation density.
The concept of centrality in high-energy nuclear collisions has recently become a subject of an active debate. In particular, the experimental methods to determine the centrality that have given reasonable results for many observables in high-energy lead-lead collisions at the LHC have led to surprising behaviour in the case of proton-lead collisions. In this letter, we discuss the possibility to calibrate the experimental determination of centrality by asymmetries caused by mutually different spatial distributions of protons and neutrons inside the nuclei --- a well-known phenomenon in nuclea…
