Relative production rates of ⁶He, ⁹Be, ¹²C in astrophysical environments

¹  Instituto de Estructura de la Materia, CSIC - Serrano 123, E-28006 Madrid, Spain, EU
²  Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University - DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark, EU

Corresponding author: imtd101@iem.cfmac.csic.es

Received: 4 March 2010
Accepted: 28 May 2010

Abstract

We assume an environment of neutrons and α-particles of given density and temperature where nuclear syntheses into ⁶He, ⁹Be and ¹²C are possible. We investigate the resulting relative abundance as a function of density and temperature. When the relative abundance of α-particles Y_α is between 0.4 and 0.9, or larger than 0.9, the largest production is ⁹Be or ¹²C, respectively. When Y_α < 0.4 ⁶He is mostly frequently produced for temperatures above about 2 GK whereas the ⁹Be production dominates at smaller temperatures.