Nucleosynthesis in the Neutrino Driven Winds of Protoneutron Stars
Luke Roberts, University of California, Santa Cruz
Using the stellar evolution code Kepler, which includes a full adaptive nuclear reaction network, we have performed calculations of neutrino driven winds from the surface of protoneutron stars which include hydrodynamics, all strong processes, and all weak processes of importance. In this environment, neutrino interactions push the material in the wind to high entropies and at later times weak charged current interactions tend to reduce the electron fraction to values possibly favorable for an r-process. We have also included time dependent neutrino luminosities and energies so as to follow the evolution of the wind from the proton-rich stage through the neutron-rich stage to calculate integrated nucleosynthetic yields. Here, we report preliminary results of our calculations and discuss future directions for this work.
Abstract Author(s): Luke Roberts, Stan Woosley, Alex Heger, Rob Hoffman