Unraveling the anomaly in the production of $^{60}$Fe nucleus in massive stars

TL;DR

This study re-evaluates the production of $^{60}$Fe in massive stars, demonstrating that previous claims of enhancement were due to nuclear model choices, and emphasizes the importance of microscopic nuclear properties in reaction rate calculations.

Contribution

The paper introduces a microscopic approach to nuclear level density and gamma-ray strength functions, challenging previous assumptions and providing more reliable predictions for $^{60}$Fe production.

Findings

Lowered Maxwellian-averaged cross section compared to previous estimates.

Identified the microscopic origin of the low-energy gamma-ray strength enhancement.

Questioned the validity of the Brink-Axel hypothesis in this context.

Abstract

The production of $^{60}$Fe is crucial for nucleosynthesis in massive stars and supernovae. In this work, by using the microscopic EP+IPM (exact pairing plus the independent-particle model) for the nuclear level density (NLD) and extended EP+PDM (exact pairing plus phonon damping model) for the $\gamma$-ray strength function (gSF), we re-evaluate the substantial enhancement of $^{60}$Fe production recently reported in {\it A. Spyrou et al., Nat. Comm. {\bf 15}, 9608 (2024)}, which was attributed to an unexpectedly large Maxwellian-averaged cross section (MACS). Our analysis demonstrates that this enhancement indeed originates from the choice of NLD, which, despite being constrained to reproduce the total NLD and gSF data, lacks a reliable spin dependence, a critical input for Hauser-Feshbach calculations of nuclear reaction rate. In contrast, our predictions yield a significantly lower MACS, calling the claimed enhancement into question. In particular, our approach highlights the microscopic nature of the low-energy enhancement of the gSF, the so-called upbend resonance, which arises from strong particle-particle ($pp$) and hole-hole ($hh$) excitations that emerge only at finite temperature, thereby further reinsisting on the invalidity of the Brink-Axel hypothesis in this low-energy region. Overall, our study reopens the question on the long-standing problem of $^{60}$Fe production in massive stars.