Publications
Abundance of live <sup>244</sup>Pu in deep-sea reservoirs on Earth points to rarity of actinide nucleosynthesis
- Author(s)
- A. Wallner, T. Faestermann, J. Feige, C. Feldstein, K. Knie, G. Korschinek, W. Kutschera, A. Ofan, M. Paul, F. Quinto, G. Rugel, P. Steier
- Abstract
Half of the heavy elements including all actinides are produced in r-process
nucleosynthesis, whose sites and history remain a mystery. If
continuously produced, the Interstellar Medium is expected to build-up a
quasi-steady state of abundances of short-lived nuclides (with
half-lives ≤100 My), including actinides produced in r-process
nucleosynthesis. Their existence in today’s interstellar medium would
serve as a radioactive clock and would establish that their production
was recent. In particular 244Pu, a radioactive actinide nuclide (half-life=81 My), can place strong constraints on recent r-process frequency and production yield. Here we report the detection of live interstellar 244Pu,
archived in Earth’s deep-sea floor during the last 25 My, at abundances
lower than expected from continuous production in the Galaxy by about 2
orders of magnitude. This large discrepancy may signal a rarity of
actinide r-process nucleosynthesis sites, compatible with neutron-star mergers or with a small subset of actinide-producing supernovae.
- Organisation(s)
- Isotope Physics
- External organisation(s)
- Technische Universität München, Hebrew University Jerusalem, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Australian National University
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Volume
- 6
- No. of pages
- 9
- ISSN
- 2041-1723
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6956
- Publication date
- 01-2015
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103014 Nuclear physics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physics and Astronomy(all), Chemistry(all), Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/abundance-of-live-244pu-in-deepsea-reservoirs-on-earth-points-to-rarity-of-actinide-nucleosynthesis(9b70d04c-2fbf-4d26-a5fe-0b2684e78788).html