Neutron rich nuclei in a new binding energy formula and the astrophysical $r-$process

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new phenomenological mass formula for neutron-rich nuclei, compares its predictions with existing models, and discusses its implications for r-process nucleosynthesis, finding minimal impact on abundance predictions beyond mass 80.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel mass formula that alters the predicted neutron dripline and evaluates its effects on r-process element synthesis.

Findings

Neutron dripline predictions differ significantly from other models.

R-process abundances up to mass 200 are largely unaffected.

Errors in the mass formula have minimal impact beyond mass A=80.

Abstract

Neutron rich nuclei has been studied with a new phenomenological mass formula. Predictions of different mass formulas for the location of the neutron dripline are compared with those from the present calculation. The implications of the new mass formula for r-process nucleosynthesis are discussed. It is found that though the neutron drip line obtained from this formula differs substantially from other formulas, the r-process abundance upto mass 200 are unlikely to be significantly different. The errors inherent in the mass formula are found to play an insignificant role beyond mass A = 80.