Nuclear physics uncertainty in computational studies of the r-process nucleosynthesis
Dr. Yukiya Saito
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Notre Dame
The rapid neutron capture process (r-process) is believed to be responsible for the synthesis of the heaviest elements in the Universe and to occur in extreme astrophysical events such as compact binary mergers. Despite a multitude of efforts and developments to understand the workings of the r-process both in nuclear physics and astrophysics, many challenges and unknowns remain. One of such challenges is to quantitatively gauge our understanding of the r-process, in other words, to obtain comprehensive uncertainty estimates in the theoretical reproduction of observable quantities. In this talk, I will first overview the sources of uncertainty in computational r-process studies, with a focus on nuclear physics. I will then discuss our development of uncertainty quantification and related techniques based on (Bayesian) statistics, machine learning, and nuclear reaction network calculation.
Hosted by Prof. Surman