Andrew W. Steiner
University of Minnesota, Minneaplolis
Nuclear Astrophysics in Two Acts: r-Process Nucleosynthesis in Neutrino-Driven Winds
and the Nuclear Symmetry Energy
In the first portion of this talk, we revisit the problem of r-process
nucleosynthesis in neutrino driven winds. The boundary conditions for
the neutrino-driven wind near the neutron star surface are determined
through the novel construction of an "injection region". This
allows for a determination of the r-process abundances consistent with
hydrodynamic calculations given the properties of the neutron star and
the accompanying neutrino emission. In the second portion, the
influence of isospin dependence on the structure of neutron stars and
nuclei will be explored. We show that: 1) a fit to the equation of
state of Akmal, et. al. gives reasonable results for the binding
energies and charge radii of doubly-magic nuclei, 2) models with
sufficient flexibility to describe variations in the symmetry energy
allow for neutron star radii as small as 9 km, and 3) several models
do not predict the expected quadratic dependence of the surface
energies on the isospin asymmetry.
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