ESO/L. Sidewalk/m. Kornmesser
Gamma ray explosions, the most powerful types of explosions known in the cosmos, can help provide a puzzle piece with regard to one of the most challenging open problems in all physics – how the heaviest elements in the universe are forged.
The results of a new study suggest that the extraordinarily powerful light of Gamma ray explosions It can help produce elements such as gold from the outer layers of dying stars.
The results of the were presented in an article recently published in the The Astrophysical Journal.
Previously, the investigation suggested that the formation of heavier elementslike gold, requires Abundant amounts of neutrons that atomic nuclei can absorb to become increasing.
But because of this, scientists assumed that the heavy elements were created only in places where neutrons already existed in large quantities, explains Matthew Mumpowerphysicist from the National Laboratory of Los Alamos, in New Mexico, and the main author of the study, to.
Normally, Neutrons are linked to atomic nuclei or to the matter that constitutes the extraordinarily powerful stars so -called neutrons stars.
Nuclear reactions, such as fission or fusion, can release neutrons from their calls to help generate heavy elements. “However, free neutrons normally decide in about 15 minutes“, Details MUMPOWER.
This limits the number of potential situations in which free neutrons are available in the abundance necessary to form heavy elements only to Some rare scenarios.
One of these scenarios is the catastrophic fusion of two stars of neutrons. “For 20 years I have been studying the origin of heavy elements,” says Mummpower. “It keeps me clinging because there are many unknowns, which makes it one of the problems harder to solve in all physics. ”
Now, mompower and his colleagues suggest a new way of forging heavy elements: the powerful photons, or light particles, the explosions of gamma ray they can Help generate neutrons.
“If we have energy photons, we produce neutrons And if we have neutrons, we can heavy elements“Says Mummpower.
This new scenario provides for the death of a massive star When your fuel runs out. Without the energy needed to counteract the impetus of its immense severity, the star’s core collapses, forming a black hole.
This catastrophic death can throw impulses of radiation incredibly strong – the Gamma ray explosions.
The stars spin, including our sun, and if a black hole produced by a dying star turn depress enoughA, can throw a powerful jet and generate high -energy photons in the depths of the jet. This jet clashes in the outer layer of the dying star, Creating a hot cocoon of material.
In this hot cocoon, researchers suggest that the high -energy photons of the jet can interact with atomic nucleitransmuting protons into neutrons incredibly rapidly – in the order of a nanosecond.
According to the team, energy photons can also break the atomic nuclei, Creating free neutrons. All of these neutrons can help to forge heavy elements.
“The inspiration for this study came from conversations with my children“, disse Mumpower. “They love watching slow camera videos On YouTube and one night during the pandemic, we saw an incredible video of a commuting of goods crossing a huge snow. Snow did not simply disappear “It was blown to the side and wrapped the train.”
“And if this train represented an astrophysical jet full of high -energy photons, And the snow represented a star to be destroyedcreating a hot cocoon of material capable of generating neutrons? ” Mummpower remembers having thought. “This analogy became my moment ‘Eureka’launching this investigation ”.
This newly discovered mechanism can explain strange discoveries prior, such as the fact of certain radioactive materials, such as iron-60 and plutonio-244, appear together in the sediments of the sea deep from the earth.
Earlier works suggested an extraterrestrial origin for these substances, but neutron star mergers, one of the main mechanisms known for the formation of heavy elements, They cannot easily explain These materials.
These results may also explain the recent – a visible and infrared light glow – associated with long -term gamma explosions.
Previous studies associated the kilonovas with collision of two stars of neutrons or at fusion of a neutron star with a black holenot to the collapse of stars.
Mupower expects future observations to provide clear evidence that support the team’s new discoveries. For example, a series of telescopes capable of detecting light, neutrinos and gravitational waves could follow the way a collapse star can generate a burst of gamma rays and a kilonova.
“This information would provide us with irrefutable evidence of the physical mechanism proposed, ”he says.
