Evidence for an Intense Neutrino Flux during [ITAL]r[/ITAL]-Process Nucleosynthesis?

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Abstract
We investigate the possibility that neutrino capture on heavy nuclei competes with beta decay in the environment where the r-process elements are synthesized. We find that such neutrino capture is not excluded by existing abundance determinations. We show that inclusion of significant neutrino capture on the neutron number N = 82 waiting-point nuclei can allow the inferred abundances of these species to provide a good fit to steady weak (beta decay plus neutrino capture) flow equilibrium. In fact, for particular choices of neutrino flux conditions, this fit is an improvement over the case in which nuclei change their charge by beta decay alone. However, this improved fit can be realized only if neutrino capture plays a negligible role in nuclear decay back toward stability. We discuss the implications of these considerations for currently proposed sites and models of r-process nucleosynthesis.
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