Abstract
Radioactivity was discovered as a by-product of searching for elements with suitable chemical properties. The efforts to understand its characteristics led to the development of nuclear physics, understanding that unstable configurations of nucleons transform into stable end products through radioactive decay. In the universe, nuclear reactions create new nuclei under the energetic circumstances characterising cosmic nucleosynthesis sites, such as the cores of stars and supernova explosions. Observing the radioactive decays of unstable nuclei, which are by-products of such cosmic nucleosynthesis, is a special discipline of astronomy. Understanding these special cosmic sites, their environments, their dynamics, and their physical processes, is the research goal of the Astrophysics with Radioactivities that makes the subject of this book. We address the history, the candidate sites of nucleosynthesis, the different observational opportunities, and the tools of this field of astrophysics.
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Notes
- 1.
IUPAC, the international union of chemistry, coordinates definitions, groupings, and naming; see www.IUPAC.org.
- 2.
The mass difference is (Patrignani and Particle Data Group 2016) 1.293332 MeV = 939.565413 − 938.272081 MeV for the mass of neutron and proton, respectively. One may think of the proton as the lowest-energy configuration of a hadron, that is the target of matter in a higher state, such as the combined proton-electron particle, more massive than the proton by the electron mass plus some binding energy of the quark constituents of hadrons.
- 3.
The sub-atomic particles in the nucleus are composed of three quarks, and also called baryons. Together with the two-quark particles called mesons, they form the particles called hadrons, which obey the strong nuclear force.
- 4.
This is often called chemical potential, and describes the energy that is held as internal energy in species i, which could potentially be liberated when binding energy per nucleon would change as nucleons would be transferred to different species j, k, l….
- 5.
The mass of the neutron exceeds that of the proton by 1.2933 MeV, making the proton the most stable baryon.
- 6.
In a broader sense, nuclear physics may be considered to be similar to chemistry: elementary building blocks are rearranged to form different species, with macroscopically-emerging properties such as, e.g., characteristic and well-defined energies released in such transitions.
- 7.
States may differ in their quantum numbers, such as spin, or orbital-momenta projections; if they obtain the same energy E, they are called degenerate.
- 8.
The binding energy per nucleon is maximized for nucleons bound as a Fe nucleus.
- 9.
These masses may be either nuclear masses or atomic masses, the electron number is conserved, and their binding energies are negligible, in comparison.
- 10.
Within an FeNi meteorite, e.g., an α particle from radioactivity has a range of only ∼10 μm.
- 11.
We ignore here two additional β decays which are possible from ν and \(\overline {\nu }\) captures, due to their small probabilities.
- 12.
This neutrino line has just recently been detected by the Borexino collaboration arriving from the center of the Sun (Arpesella et al. 2008).
- 13.
Gamma-rays from nuclear transitions following 56Ni decay (though this is a β decay by itself) inject radioactive energy through γ-rays from such nuclear transitions into the supernova envelope, where it is absorbed in scattering collisions and thermalized. This heats the envelope such that thermal and optically bright supernova light is created. Deposition of γ-rays from nuclear transitions are the engines which make supernovae to be bright light sources out to the distant universe, used in cosmological studies (Leibundgut 2000) to, e.g., support evidence for dark energy.
- 14.
We point out that there is no chemistry involved; the term refers to changes in abundances of the chemical elements, which are important for our daily-life experiences. But these are a result of the more-fundamental changes in abundances of isotopes mediated by cosmic nuclear reactions.
- 15.
This nomenclature may be misleading, it is used by convenience among astrophysicists. Only a part of these elements are actually metals.
- 16.
Deviations from the standard may be small, so that \(\lbrack \frac {S_1}{S_2}\rbrack \) may be expressed in δ units (parts per mil), or 𝜖 units (parts in 104), or ppm and ppb; δ(29 Si∕28 Si) thus denotes excess of the 29Si/28Si isotopic ratio above solar values in units of 0.1%.
- 17.
This implies a metallicity of solar matter of 1.4%. Our local reference for cosmic material composition seems to be remarkably universal. Earlier than ∼2005, the commonly-used value for solar metallicity had been 2%.
- 18.
Other astronomical windows may also be significantly influenced by biases from other astrophysical and astrochemical processes; an example is the observation of molecular isotopes of CO, where chemical reactions as well as dust formation can lead to significant alterations of the abundance of specific molecular species.
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Diehl, R. (2018). Astrophysics with Radioactive Isotopes. In: Diehl, R., Hartmann, D., Prantzos, N. (eds) Astrophysics with Radioactive Isotopes. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 453. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91929-4_1
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