Sensitivity of the r-process to nuclear masses

TL;DR

This paper identifies the most influential nuclear masses for r-process nucleosynthesis by analyzing how different mass models affect element abundance predictions, highlighting nuclei near closed neutron shells.

Contribution

It introduces a method to determine key nuclear masses impacting r-process abundances using multiple mass models and simulation analysis.

Findings

Nuclei near N=50, 82, and 126 shells are most influential.

The impact on abundances is consistent across different mass models.

Prioritizes nuclear mass measurements to improve r-process understanding.

Abstract

The rapid neutron capture process (r-process) is thought to be responsible for the creation of more than half of all elements beyond iron. The scientific challenges to understanding the origin of the heavy elements beyond iron lie in both the uncertainties associated with astrophysical conditions that are needed to allow an r-process to occur and a vast lack of knowledge about the properties of nuclei far from stability. There is great global competition to access and measure the most exotic nuclei that existing facilities can reach, while simultaneously building new, more powerful accelerators to make even more exotic nuclei. This work is an attempt to determine the most crucial nuclear masses to measure using an r-process simulation code and several mass models (FRDM, Duflo-Zuker, and HFB-21). The most important nuclear masses to measure are determined by the changes in the resulting r-process abundances. Nuclei around the closed shells near N=50, 82, and 126 have the largest impact on r-process abundances irrespective of the mass models used.