Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Oct 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002phdt........26g&link_type=abstract
Thesis (PhD). CLEMSON UNIVERSITY, Source DAI-B 63/11, p. 5311, May 2003, 39 pages.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4
Scientific paper
Many isotopes of importance to nucleosynthesis have metastable states whose decay to the ground state is strongly inhibited by a high angular momentum difference. Traditionally, excited states of a nucleus have been treated by assuming attainment of thermal equilibrium; a Hauser-Feshbach calculation is then performed on the whole nucleus to determine nuclear reaction rates. A description of the nucleus when it is not in equilibrium, and a method for computing reaction rates that does not presume thermalization are presented in this work. In nucleosynthesis calculations, we may characterize the internal electromagnetic transitions of a nucleus as a Markov process. This allows us to decompose the interaction of radiation with nucleons into effective interactions between ensembles. Rather than consider a single isotope, we construct the canonical ensembles which are the true nuclear species of interest. We are then in a position to specify nonequilibrium occupations of the ensembles by discretizing the Nuclear Level Density function. The generality of the stochastic process identified at the outset now permits the description of nucleosynthesis as Markov flows in networks of suitably populated ensembles. This allows us to use as many excited states as we wish in nucleosyn thesis while tracking their nonequilibrium evolution as substochastic processes. A website utilizing these principles is discussed in some detail. It accesses the theoretical NLD database from the Brussels Intitute of Astrophysics to supplement adopted experimental data from the ENSDF database (maintained by Brookhaven National Laboratories). The composite is processed by a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) application to dynamically obtain plots and tables of rates on a specified temperature grid. Beta-decay rates are discussed for an isotope important to nuclear astrophysics ( 180TA) as a test-bed for the techniques implemented.
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