Supernova Nucleosynthesis: Radioactive Nuclear Reactions and Neutrino-Mass Hierarchy
speaker: Xingqun Yao
Abstract:
We study the sensitivities of nuclear abundances of 7Li, 7Be, 11B, and 11C nuclei to all possible nuclear reactions including short-lived radioactive nuclei in core collapse supernova nucleosynthesis. There is a global trend that the final abundances depend on the variation of n-induced reaction rates for 4+He, 12C and 16O. We also find that p, n, d, t 3He and α particles, which are produced from the n-induced reactions, interact secondarily with primary products 7Li, 7Be, 11B, and 11C, resulting in a remarkable destruction of these nuclei. This mechanism generates nonlinear sensitivity to the primary n-A reaction rates. In particular, the poorly known radioactive nuclear reactions 11C(α, n) are found, for the first time, to affect strongly the final 11C abundance. We discuss the impact on the neutrino oscillation effect which depends on neutrino mass-hierarchy.