Quantum statistical calculation of cluster abundances in hot dense matter

TL;DR

This paper presents a quantum statistical method to calculate cluster abundances in hot dense matter, accounting for in-medium effects like self-energy and Pauli blocking, with implications for understanding element distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum statistical framework that includes in-medium corrections for arbitrary cluster sizes, advancing the modeling of nuclear cluster abundances in dense matter.

Findings

Weakly bound nuclei with 4<A<12 are significantly suppressed due to Pauli blocking.

The approach aligns cluster abundance predictions with solar element distributions.

In-medium effects are crucial for accurate nuclear matter modeling.

Abstract

The cluster abundances are calculated from a quantum statistical approach taking into account in-medium corrections. For arbitrary cluster size the self-energy and Pauli blocking shifts are considered. Exploratory calculations are performed for symmetric matter at temperature $T=5$ MeV and baryon density $\varrho=0.0156$ fm$^{-3}$ to be compared with the solar element distribution. It is shown that the abundances of weakly bound nuclei with mass number $4<A<12$ are strongly suppressed due to Pauli blocking effects.