https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201818401007
Heavy Element Nucleosynthesis
merican University of Beirut, Department of Physics,
Beirut, Lebanon
Published online: 29 June 2018
This contribution deals with the important subject of the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in the Galaxy. After an overview of several observational features, the physical processes responsible mainly for the formation of heavy elements will be described and linked to possible stellar sites and to galactic chemical evolution. In particular, we focus on the neutron-capture processes, namely the s-process (slow neutron capture) and the r-process (rapid neutron capture) and discuss some problems in connection with their sites and their outcome. The aim is to give a brief overview on the exciting subject of the heavy element nucleosynthesis in the Galaxy, emphasizing its importance to trace the galactic chemical evolution and illustrating the challenge of this subject.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2018
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.