Cold r-Process in Neutrino-Driven Winds

Understand

The r-process in a low temperature environment is explored, in which the neutron emission by photodisintegration does not play a role (cold r-process).

• A semi-analytic neutrino-driven wind model is utilized for this purpose.
• The temperature in a supersonically expanding outflow can quickly drop to a few 10^8 K, where the (n, gamma)-(gamma, n) equilibrium is never achieved during the heavy r-nuclei synthesis.
• In addition, the neutron capture competes with the beta-decay owing to the low matter density.