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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Chemical Evolution Of The Neutron-Rich Iron-Group Isotopes And Implications For The Formation Of Fun Cais, Tianhong Yu Dec 2013

Chemical Evolution Of The Neutron-Rich Iron-Group Isotopes And Implications For The Formation Of Fun Cais, Tianhong Yu

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Calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) are millimeter-sized refractory objects found in primitive meteorites. CAIs are considered as some of the first solids to form in the solar system, because they are refractory. FUN CAIs, those with Fractionated and Unknown Nuclear effects, are a small subset of CAIs. These FUN CAIs show correlated excesses and deficits in the neutron-rich iron-group isotopes such as 48 Ca and 50 Ti which regular CAIs do not. Interestingly, these isotopes are most likely produced infrequently but in huge quantities in a rare class of thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae. I propose that the isotopic effects in the neutron-rich …


The Power Of Thermonuclear Supernovae After One Year, Ginger Bryngelson Aug 2012

The Power Of Thermonuclear Supernovae After One Year, Ginger Bryngelson

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Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf, shape our understanding of the expansion of the universe with the use of their uniformity in distance determinations. Powered by radioactivity synthesized in the explosion, they fade slowly over hundreds of days. Sometime after 200 days, the continually expanding ejecta allows γ-rays from 56 Ni and 56 Co decays to escape, and soon any radioactive power contributing to lighting up the SN comes from positrons formed in 19% of 56 Co
decays.
While at first it seemed that positrons escaped through the thinning ejecta, it has become apparent …