The nuclear reaction network WinNet

TL;DR

WinNet is an advanced, open-source nuclear reaction network capable of modeling nucleosynthesis across diverse astrophysical environments, from primordial conditions to neutron star merger ejecta.

Contribution

It introduces a versatile, publicly available reaction network with multiple integration methods and demonstrates its reliability through test cases.

Findings

Successfully models nucleosynthesis in various astrophysical scenarios

Provides reliable results validated by test cases

Offers flexible integration methods for different computational needs

Abstract

We present the state-of-the-art single-zone nuclear reaction network WinNet that is capable of calculating the nucleosynthetic yields of a large variety of astrophysical environments and conditions. This ranges from the calculation of the primordial nucleosynthesis, where only a few nuclei are considered, to the ejecta of neutron star mergers with several thousands of involved nuclei. Here we describe the underlying physics and implementation details of the reaction network. We additionally present the numerical implementation of two different integration methods, the implicit Euler method and Gears method along with their advantages and disadvantages. We furthermore describe basic example cases of thermodynamic conditions that we provide together with the network and demonstrate the reliability of the code by using simple test cases. With this publication, WinNet is publicly available and open source at GitHub and Zenodo.