Sanjana Curtis: “Neutrinos and nucleosynthesis in core-collapse supernovae”

Thursday 11 Nov 2021, 13:00 → 14:00 Europe/London

Core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) are highly energetic events that mark the deaths of massive stars. They are one of the most important sites of element synthesis in the universe and drive the chemical evolution of galaxies. A major goal of CCSN studies is to determine how nucleosynthesis outcomes depend on progenitor properties (e.g. mass and metallicity) and explosion details. Neutrinos are key to answering this question. Traditional approaches that do not account for neutrino-matter interactions omit important microphysics relevant for both the explosion and the explosive nucleosynthesis. In this talk, I will discuss the PUSH method, a parametrized explosion method based on the neutrino-driven mechanism. PUSH follows the neutrino-matter interactions that set the ratio of neutrons to protons in the ejecta and allows a more accurate treatment of nucleosynthesis in the innermost stellar layers. I will present nucleosynthesis yields across progenitors of different masses and metallicities and discuss how neutrino-matter interactions impact the yields of different isotopes.

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