Conveners
R1-4 Precision Nuclear Processes and Beyond (DNP) | Processus nucléaires de précision et au delà (DPN)
- Svetlana Barkanova (Grenfell Campus of Memorial University)
For more than 60 years the solar isotopic abundances have been providing clues to the astrophysical origins of elements such as the heavy species formed by the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). Although the era of multi-messenger astronomy presents new opportunities to probe single r-process events, the solar abundances still serve as the key informant of the contributions of a given...
The core of a neutron star can be considered as uniform nuclear matter with densities above the nuclear saturation density $n_0=3 \times 10^{14}~g/cm^3$. On the other hand, the outer crust of a neutron star is a Coulomb crystal with densities of several orders of magnitude below the nuclear saturation density. In between these two, we can find complex, non-uniform phases of nuclear matter...
The 'island of inversion' centred on $^{32}$Mg is characterized by ground state configurations with an inverted ordering of $sd$ and $pf$ (intruder) neutron orbitals due to nuclear deformation and nucleon-nucleon interactions. For neutron rich $sd$ shell nuclei outside of the 'island of inversion', similar configurations incorporating the neutron $pf$ shell occur in levels with high excitation...
Double beta decay is a process whereby two neutrons simultaneously decay into protons, emitting two electrons. These exceedingly rare decays have been observed with the emission of two neutrinos. However, if the neutrino is a Majorana fermion, i.e. it is its own anti-particle, double beta decays are also possible without the emission of any neutrinos. The $^{136}$Xe $2\nu\beta\beta$ half-life...
