The study employs the full isotopic r-process abundances in nature and a unified model for all nuclear properties involved to uniquely deduce the conditions necessary to produce such an abundance pattern. The nature of the steady-flow equilibrium of beta decays between isotopic chains is also investigated. Strong evidence is found to the effect that a steady flow was not global but only local in between neighboring peaks, which requires time scales not much longer than 1 s. The remaining odd-even effects in observed abundances indicate that neutron densities dropped during freeze-out by orders of magnitude on time scales close to 0.04 s. A set of n(n)-T conditions is presented as a test for any astrophysical r-process site. The way remaining deficiencies in the produced abundance pattern can be used to extract nuclear properties far from stability is also shown.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Kratz et al. (1993) studied this question.