Nucleosynthesis in neutrino-driven winds: influence of the nuclear physics input

TL;DR

This study uses hydrodynamical simulations of proto-neutron star winds to examine how nuclear physics inputs affect the synthesis of heavy elements, revealing that slight entropy increases can enable r-process element production.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of nucleosynthesis sensitivity to hydrodynamical and nuclear physics parameters in proto-neutron star wind models.

Findings

Small entropy enhancements enable r-process element synthesis.

Production of heavy elements is sensitive to wind termination shock.

Nuclear physics input significantly influences nucleosynthesis outcomes.

Abstract

We have performed hydrodynamical simulations of the long-time evolution of proto-neutron stars to study the nucleosynthesis using the resulting wind trajectories. Although the conditions found in the present wind models are not favourable for the production of heavy elements, a small enhancement of the entropy results in the production of r-process elements with A $\approx$ 195. This allows us to explore the sensitivity of their production to the hydrodynamical evolution (wind termination shock) and nuclear physics input used.