Special Astrophysics Seminar

Where and how were the heaviest nuclei produced?

Maxime Brodeur

Notre Dame University

Nearly half of all elements beyond iron were produced via processes involving extremely exotic nuclei in an unclear astrophysical site. Indeed, the synthesis of these heavy nuclei is known to be the fruit of a succession of a rapid capture of neutrons and beta-decays describing a path along an uncharted region of the nuclear chart. Therefore, abundance calculations of nuclei produced by this process rely on nuclear models, which in turn rely on experimental data of exotic nuclei closer to the ‘valley of stability’. Among various experimental inputs, atomic masses appear as being the quantity to which the abundance pattern is the most sensitive. A world-wide effort is ongoing to map out this ‘erra-incognita’ of unknown atomic masses through high precision mass measurements. Current state-of-the-art mass spectrometry techniques for exotic nuclei will be introduced and some current and future developments will be discussed.