We present beta-delayed neutron emission and beta-delayed fission ( beta df) calculations for heavy, neutron-rich nuclei using the coupled Quasi-Particle Random Phase Approximation plus Hauser-Feshbach (QRPA+HF) approach. From the initial population of a compound nucleus after beta-decay, we follow the statistical decay, taking into account competition between neutrons, gamma-rays, and fission. We find a region of the chart of nuclides where the probability of beta df is similar to 100%, which likely prevents the production of superheavy elements in nature. For a subset of nuclei near the neutron dripline, neutron multiplicity and the probability of fission are both large, leading to the intriguing possibility of multi-chance beta df, a decay mode for extremely neutron-rich heavy nuclei. In this decay mode, beta-decay can be followed by multiple neutron emission, leading to subsequent daughter generations that each have a probability to fission. We explore the impact of beta df in rapid neutron-capture process (gamma-process) nucleosynthesis in the tidal ejecta of a neutron star-neutron star merger and show that it is a key fission channel that shapes the final abundances near the second gamma-process peak.

The rapid neutron-capture ("r-") process is responsible for synthesizing many of the heavy elements observed in both the solar system and Galactic metal-poor halo stars. Simulations of r-process nucleosynthesis can reproduce abundances derived from observations with varying success, but so far they fail to account for the observed overenhancement of actinides, present in about 30% of r-process-enhanced stars. In this work, we investigate actinide production in the dynamical ejecta of a neutron star merger (NSM) and explore whether varying levels of neutron-richness can reproduce the actinide boost. We also investigate the sensitivity of actinide production on nuclear physics properties: fission distribution, beta-decay, and mass model. For most cases, the actinides are overproduced in our models if the initial conditions are sufficiently neutron-rich for fission cycling. We find that actinide production can be so robust in the dynamical ejecta that an additional lanthanide-rich, actinide-poor component is necessary in order to match observations of actinide-boost stars. We present a simple actinidedilution model that folds in estimated contributions from two nucleosynthetic sites within a merger event. Our study suggests that while the dynamical ejecta of an NSM are likely production sites for the formation of actinides, a significant contribution from another site or sites (e.g., the NSM accretion disk wind) is required to explain abundances of r-process-enhanced, metal-poor stars.

The possibility that nucleosynthesis in neutron star mergers may reach fissioning nuclei introduces significant uncertainties in predicting the relative abundances of r-process material from such events. We evaluate the impact of using sets of fission yields given by the 2016 GEF code for spontaneous (sf), neutron-induced ((n, f)), and beta-delayed (beta df) fission processes which take into account the approximate initial excitation energy of the fissioning compound nucleus. We further explore energy-dependent fission dynamics in the r process by considering the sensitivity of our results to the treatment of the energy sharing and de-excitation of the fission fragments using the FREYA code. We show that the asymmetric-to-symmetric yield trends predicted by GEF 2016 can reproduce the high-mass edge of the second r-process peak seen in solar data and examine the sensitivity of this result to the mass model and astrophysical conditions applied. We consider the effect of fission yields and barrier heights on the nuclear heating rates used to predict kilonova light curves. We find that fission barriers influence the contribution of Cf-254 spontaneous fission to the heating at similar to 100 d, such that a light curve observation consistent with such late- time heating would both confirm that actinides were produced in the event and imply the fission barriers are relatively high along the Cf-254 beta-feeding path. We lastly determine the key nuclei responsible for setting the r-process abundance pattern by averaging over thirty trajectories from a 1.2-1.4 M-circle dot neutron star merger simulation. We show it is largely the odd-N nuclei undergoing (Z, N)(n, f) and (Z, N) beta df that control the relative abundances near the second peak. We find the 'hot spots' for beta-delayed and neutron-induced fission given all mass models considered and show most of these nuclei lie between the predicted N = 184 shell closure and the location of currently available experimental decay data.

The astrophysical production site of the heaviest elements in the universe remains a mystery. Incorporating heavy element signatures of metal-poor, r-process enhanced stars into theoretical studies of r-process production can offer crucial constraints on the origin of heavy elements. In this study, we introduce and apply the "Actinide-Dilution with Matching" model to a variety of stellar groups ranging from actinide-deficient to actinide-enhanced to empirically characterize r-process ejecta mass as a function of electron fraction. We find that actinide-boost stars do not indicate the need for a unique and separate r-process progenitor. Rather, small variations of neutron richness within the same type of r-process event can account for all observed levels of actinide enhancements. The very low-Y-e, fission-cycling ejecta of an r-process event need only constitute 10-30% of the total ejecta mass to accommodate most actinide abundances of metal-poor stars. We find that our empirical Y-e distributions of ejecta are similar to those inferred from studies of GW170817 mass ejecta ratios, which is consistent with neutron-star mergers being a source of the heavy elements in metal-poor, r-process enhanced stars.

VizieR online Data Catalogue associated with article published in journal Astronomical Journal (AAS) with title 'The R-Process Alliance: First Release from the Southern Search for r-Process-Enhanced Stars in the Galactic Halo.' (bibcode: 2018ApJ...858...92H) Copyright: Refer to CDS usage

VizieR online Data Catalogue associated with article published in journal Astronomical Journal (AAS) with title 'RAVE J203843.2-002333: the first highly R-process-enhanced star identified in the RAVE survey.' (bibcode: 2017ApJ...844...18P) Copyright: Refer to CDS usage

VizieR online Data Catalogue associated with article published in journal Astronomical Journal (AAS) with title 'The R-Process Alliance: first release from the northern search for r-process-enhanced metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo.' (bibcode: 2018ApJ...868..110S) Copyright: Refer to CDS usage

VizieR online Data Catalogue associated with article published in journal Astronomical Journal (AAS) with title 'Spectroscopic validation of low-metallicity stars from RAVE.' (bibcode: 2018AJ....155..256P) Copyright: Refer to CDS usage

VizieR online Data Catalogue associated with article published in journal Astronomical Journal (AAS) with title 'The r-process alliance: discovery of the first metal-poor star with a combined r- and s-process element signature.' (bibcode: 2018ApJ...862..174G) Copyright: Refer to CDS usage

We report the first detection of the Pb II line at 2203.534 angstrom in three metal-poor stars, using ultraviolet spectra obtained with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope. We perform a standard abundance analysis assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) to derive lead (Pb, Z = 82) abundances. The Pb II line yields a higher abundance than Pb I lines by +0.36 +/- 0.34 dex and +0.49 +/- 0.28 dex in the stars HD 94028 and HD 196944, where Pb I lines had been detected previously. The Pb II line is likely formed in LTE, and these offsets affirm previous calculations showing that Pb I lines commonly used as abundance indicators underestimate the Pb abundance in LTE. Pb is enhanced in the s-process-enriched stars HD 94028 ([Pb/Fe] = +0.95 +/- 0.14) and HD 196944 ([Pb/Fe] = +2.28 +/- 0.23), and we show that Pb-208 is the dominant Pb isotope in these two stars. The log epsilon(Pb/Eu) ratio in the r-process-enhanced star HD 222925 is 0.76 +/- 0.14, which matches the solar system r-process ratio and indicates that the solar system r-process residuals for Pb are, in aggregate, correct. The Th/Pb chronometer in HD 222925 yields an age of 8.2 +/- 5.8 Gyr, and we highlight the potential of the Th/Pb chronometer as a relatively model-insensitive age indicator in r-process-enhanced stars.