Stellar nucleosynthesis

Stellar nucleosynthesis is the collective term for the nuclear reactions taking
place in stars to build the nuclei of the heavier elements.
The processes involved began to be understood early in the twentieth century, when it was first
realised that the energy released from nuclear reactions accounted for the longevity of the Sun as a
source of heat and light.
The prime energy producer in the sun is the fusion of hydrogen to helium, which occurs at a
minimum temperature of 3 million kelvin.

Main sequence stars fuse hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms in their cores. About 90
percent of the stars in the universe, including the sun, are main sequence stars. These stars
can range from about a tenth of the mass of the sun to up to 200 times as massive.

A main sequence star is any star that is fusing hydrogen in its core and has a stable balance
of outward pressure from core nuclear fusion and gravitational forces pushing inward.

There are two sequences of reactions that can convert hydrogen to helium and
thereby release energy that are important in stars.

1. The Proton-Proton or PP Chain, which is important in stars the mass of the

Sun and less.
2. The CNO cycle, which is important in more massive stars

We discuss the PP chain in this section and the CNO cycle in the next.
Reactions of the PP Chain
The primary reactions in the main branch of the PP chain are illustrated in the
following figure. (There are other less important branches of this chain that we
shall ignore in our discussion).

The main branch of the PP chain consists of the following reactions:

1. Two mass-1 isotopes of hydrogen undergo a simultaneous fusion and beta

decay to produce a positron, a neutrino, and a mass-2 isotope of hydrogen
(deuterium).
2. The deuterium reacts with another mass-1 isotope of hydrogen to produce
Helium-3 and a gamma-ray.
 3. Two helium-3 isotopes produced in separate implementations of steps (1)
and (2) fuse to form a Helium-4 nucleus plus two protons.

The net effect is to convert hydrogen to helium, with the energy released going
into the particles and gamma-rays produced at each step of the sequence.
Rates for the PP Chain
The average time required for a nucleus to undergo each step of this sequence in a
typical stellar interior is indicated in the figure shown above. Thus, for example, a
hydrogen nucleus waits on the average 1 billion years before it undergoes an
interaction with another hydrogen nucleus to initiate the sequence! Since all other
steps require much less time than this, it is this initial step that controls the rate of
the reaction.

This incredibly small rate nevertheless accounts for the luminosities of normal
stars because there are so many hydrogen atoms in the core of a star that at any
one instant many are undergoing the reactions of the PP chain.
Introduction
Nuclear fusion reaction powers a star for
most of its life. When a protostar born
from nebulae or molecular settles down,
it becomes a main-sequence star, and
fusion reaction happens in its core. The
primary nuclear fusion happens in the
star core is the conversion of proton to
helium. However, depended by the
mass, stars achieve this conversion in
different ways. The proton-proton chain
reaction dominates in stars the size of
the Sun or smaller, while the Carbon-
Nitrogen-Oxigen (CNO) cycle reaction Fig. 1: Schematics of Proton-Proton Chain
dominates in stars that are more than 1.3 Reaction. (Source: J. Li, after Adelberger et al. [2])
times as massive as the Sun. [1]

Proton-Proton Chain Reaction

In the cores of lower-mass main-sequence stars such as the Sun, the dominant energy
production process is the protonproton chain reaction. This creates a He-4 nucleus
through a sequence of chain reactions that begin with the fusion of two protons to
form a deuterium nucleus along with an ejected positron and neutrino. During this
process, two hydrogen atoms are firstly merged together into a deuterium atom, which
can then be merged with another hydrogen to form He-3. Then two of the He-3 nuclei
can be merged together to form a He-4 atom. This whole reaction releases a large
amount of energy in the form of gamma rays. [2]

CNO Cycle Reaction

 In higher-mass stars, the dominant
Fig. 2: Schematics of CNO Cycle Reaction. (Source:
J. Li, after Wiescher et al. [4]) energy production process is the CNO
cycle, which is a catalytic cycle that uses
nuclei of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen as
intermediaries and in the end produces a helium nucleus as with the proton-proton
chain. CNO reaction is a very temperature sensitive process. [3] Under typical
conditions found in stars, catalytic hydrogen burning by the CNO cycles is limited by
proton captures. Specifically, the timescale for beta decay of the radioactive nuclei
produced is faster than the timescale for fusion. Thus, this kind of CNO cycle converts
hydrogen to helium slowly, and is called cold CNO cycle. [4] Under conditions of
higher temperature and pressure, the rate of proton captures exceeds the rate of beta-
decay, pushing the burning to the proton drip line. The essential idea is that a
radioactive species will capture a proton before it can beta decay, opening new
nuclear burning pathways that are otherwise inaccessible. Because of the higher
temperatures involved, these catalytic cycles are typically referred to as the hot CNO
cycles. [4]

Summary

The type of hydrogen fusion process that dominates in a star is determined by the
temperature dependency differences between the two reactions. The protonproton
chain reaction starts at temperatures about 4 × 106 °K, making it the dominant fusion
mechanism in smaller stars. A self-maintaining CNO chain requires a higher
temperature of approximately 16 × 106 °K, but thereafter it increases more rapidly in
efficiency as the temperature rises, than does the proton-proton reaction. Above
approximately 17 ×106 °K, the CNO cycle becomes the dominant source of energy.
[5]

Triple-α Process:

Energy generation is the key to the lifetime of a star. The proton-proton chain and the
CNO cycle are the source of energy for main sequence stars, but as helium builds up in
the core, the star must find another source of energy or it will die out. Fusion can occur
between any nuclei if the motion of the nuclei is fast enough to overcome the
electrostatic repulsion between the protons. For the waste product of the proton-proton
chain or the CNO cycle, helium, there is twice the amount of electric charge (two
protons) so it is twice as hard to fuse them compared to protons.

In the triple-α process, three He nuclei are fused to form carbon (technically, two He
fuse first to form beryllium (Be), then beryllium and another He fuse to form carbon;
but this happens so fast that Be only exists for a few microseconds). Carbon is the waste
product plus energy in the form of gamma-ray photons.
The energy released by the triple-α process continues to heat the core raising its
temperature even more. Again, under normal circumstances, the heating would increase
the pressure and the core would expand and cool. But, with the core being degenerate,
the temperature goes up yet the core does not expand. Higher temperatures means a
faster triple-α rate, which means more energy, which means higher temperatures, etc...

When the temperature of the core reaches 300 million degrees, a nearly explosive
consumption of the helium takes place called the helium flash. During the very short
helium flash (a few minutes), the star emits more energy than 100 times the output of
the whole Galaxy. However, this energy never reaches the surface but instead goes into
removing the degeneracy of the electrons and expanding the core.

For stars more than 2 solar masses, the triple-α process starts before the electrons
become degenerate. And, so, there is no helium flash, just a gradual shift to a core
helium burning region surrounded by a hydrogen burning shell.

The alpha process (or alpha ladder) is a process by which elements are synthesized
in high heat (e.g., inside stars) by the combination of an alpha
particle (helium nucleus) with another element (e.g., carbon, oxygen, etc.). Repeats of
this yields a "ladder" of elements with even-numbered charges from carbon up
to iron and beyond. These are the most abundant metals.

In some cases, the nucleus is unstable and beta decay lowers its atomic number by
one, which is one way odd-numbered elements are formed.

Supernova nucleosynthesis is the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements in supernova explosions.

In sufficiently massive stars, the nucleosynthesis by fusion of lighter elements into heavier ones
occurs during sequential hydrostatic burning processes called helium burning, carbon
burning, oxygen burning, and silicon burning, in which the ashes of one nuclear fuel become, after
compressional heating, the fuel for the subsequent burning stage. During hydrostatic burning these
fuels synthesize overwhelmingly the alpha-nucleus (A = 2Z) products. A rapid final explosive
burning[1] is caused by the sudden temperature spike owing to passage of the radially moving shock
wave that was launched by the gravitational collapse of the core. W. D. Arnett and his Rice
University colleagues[2][1] demonstrated that the final shock burning would synthesize the non-alpha-
nucleus isotopes more effectively than hydrostatic burning was able to do,[3][4] suggesting that the
expected shock-wave nucleosynthesis is an essential component of supernova nucleosynthesis.
Together, shock-wave nucleosynthesis and hydrostatic-burning processes create most of the
isotopes of the elements carbon (Z = 6), oxygen (Z = 8), and elements with Z = 10–
28 (from neon to nickel).[4][5] As a result of the ejection of the newly synthesized isotopes of
the chemical elements by supernova explosions their abundances steadily increased within
interstellar gas. That increase became evident to astronomers from the initial abundances in newly
born stars exceeding those in earlier-born stars.
Elements heavier than nickel are comparatively rare owing to the decline with atomic weight of their
nuclear binding energies per nucleon, but they too are created in part within supernovae. Of greatest
interest historically has been their synthesis by rapid capture of neutrons during the r-process,
reflecting the common belief that supernova cores are likely to provide the necessary conditions. But
see the r-process below for a recently discovered alternative. The r-process isotopes are roughly a
100,000 times less abundant than the primary chemical elements fused in supernova shells above.
Furthermore, other nucleosynthesis processes in supernovae are thought to also be responsible for
some nucleosynthesis of other heavy elements, notably, the proton capture process known as
the rp-process, the slow capture of neutrons (s-process) in the helium-burning shells and in the
carbon-burning shells of massive stars, and a photodisintegration process known as the γ-
process (gamma-process). The latter synthesizes the lightest, most neutron-poor, isotopes of the
elements heavier than iron from preexisting heavier isotopes.

28Si + 4He ⇌ 32S + γ;

32S + 4He ⇌ 36Ar + γ;
36Ar + 4He ⇌ 40Ca + γ;
40Ca + 4He ⇌ 44Ti + γ;
44Ti + 4He ⇌ 48Cr + γ;
48Cr + 4He ⇌ 52Fe + γ;
52Fe + 4He ⇌ 56Ni + γ;
56Ni + 4He ⇌ 60Zn + γ.