Neutrinos, Weak Interactions, and r-process Nucleosynthesis

Abstract

Two of the key issues in understanding the neutron-to-proton ratio in a core-collapse supernova are discussed. One of these is the behavior of the neutrino-nucleon cross sections as supernova energies. The other issue is the many-body properties of the neutrino gas near the core when both one- and two-body interaction terms are included.

Comments: To be published in the Proceedings of "International Symposium on Structure of Exotic Nuclei and Nuclear Forces (SENUF 06)", March 2006, Tokyo, Japan