“Inside their cores, stars conduct some secret operations for the production of heavy elements.”, — write: www.unian.ua
Inside their cores, stars conduct some secret operations for the production of heavy elements.
Scientists have revealed the secret of heavy elements created by stars / photo WikipediaScientists have revealed the secret of heavy elements created by stars. The results of the Argonne National Laboratory study were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.Researchers have studied nuclear reactions and measured conditions that may explain how heavy elements form inside stars.
It is noted that stars are mainly composed of the light elements hydrogen and helium. However, deep within their cores, they also carry out a process called nucleosynthesis, which leads to the formation of heavy elements as a result of the fusion of hydrogen and helium nuclei.
Stellar nucleosynthesis has been a mystery to scientists because it is still unclear what specific conditions and mechanisms lead to the production of various heavy metals inside stars. It turns out that an important part of this process is neutron capture, in which neutrons are added to existing nuclei. These nuclei then evolve and turn into heavy elements.
There are three types of neutron capture processes; s-process (slow neutron capture), r-process (fast neutron capture) and i-process (intermediate neutron capture). They explain the formation of heavy elements at different stages of a star’s life cycle.
For example, the first two occur in the case of red giants (giant stars nearing the end of their life cycle) and supernovae (exploding stars), respectively. Whereas the i-process is particularly useful for explaining the production of specific heavy elements such as lanthanum and barium in growing white dwarfs (the core of a dead star without nuclear fuel).
Thus, the i-process is of great importance because it occurs in environments with moderate neutron density, as opposed to the extreme conditions required for the r-process or the lower neutron density characteristic of the s-process.
The study authors also reported measuring the nuclear reaction that affects lanthanum production in the i-process. They state that “with the new constraints, scientists can confirm the neutron density required for the i-process. They can also confirm that fast growing white dwarfs are a viable host for the i-process.”
According to the authors of the study, lanthanum plays an important role in understanding the i-process because its abundance in stars, along with elements such as barium and europium, helps scientists infer the conditions under which the i-process occurs:
“This is an important step towards determining the exact astrophysical location of stars that carry the i-process signature.”
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