New estimate for the time-dependent thermal nucleosynthesis of $^{180}$Ta$^m$

TL;DR

This paper presents a new time-dependent model for supernova nucleosynthesis of $^{180}$Ta$^m$, explicitly linking nuclear states to accurately predict its production and survival.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed time-dependent calculation including all known excited states and explores the impact of potential links to a conjectured state.

Findings

Avoids overproduction of $^{180}$Ta$^m$ relative to $^{138}$La at 4 MeV neutrino temperature

Includes explicit state linking for accurate synthesis modeling

Assesses the impact of a conjectured excited state on residual ratio

Abstract

We have made a new time-dependent calculation of the supernova production ratio of the long-lived isomeric state of $^{180}$Ta. Such a time-dependent solution is crucial for understanding the production and survival of this isotope. We include the explicit linking between the isomer and all known excited states.We have also calculated the properties of possible links to a conjectured excited state that might decrease the final isomer residual ratio. We find that the explicit time evolution of the synthesis of $^{180}$Ta using the available nuclear data avoids the overproduction relative to $^{138}$La for a $\nu$-process neutrino temperature of 4 MeV.