Electron Capture Rates on Nuclei and Implications for Stellar Core Collapse
Electron Capture Rates on Nuclei and Implications for Stellar Core Collapse
Supernova simulations to date have assumed that during core collapse electron captures occur dominantly on free protons, while captures on heavy nuclei are Pauli blocked and are ignored. We have calculated rates for electron capture on nuclei with mass numbers A=65-112 for the temperatures and densities appropriate for core collapse. …