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Seminar | Physics

Galactic Forensics: Utilizing Stellar Debris to Investigate Explosive Nucleosynthesis

PHY Seminar

Core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) nucleosynthesis contributes significantly to the production of the chemical elements in the galaxy, but the rarity of high-quality spectroscopic observations (through no fault of astronomers) hinders our understanding of these processes. What nuclei are expelled into the interstellar medium by CCSNe, and how are these nuclei made? I will discuss the concerted, multidisciplinary approach being pursued by the nuclear astrophysics team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to probe explosive nucleosynthesis. We combine radioactive beam measurements of important reaction rates with state-of-the-art nucleosynthesis network models to make predictions for isotopic abundances that we then compare to data from in-house nano-analytical measurements of presolar CCSNe grains obtained from meteorites. I will present our first results and ongoing work.