Publikationen

Abundance of live <sup>244</sup>Pu in deep-sea reservoirs on Earth points to rarity of actinide nucleosynthesis

Autor(en)
A. Wallner, T. Faestermann, J. Feige, C. Feldstein, K. Knie, G. Korschinek, W. Kutschera, A. Ofan, M. Paul, F. Quinto, G. Rugel, P. Steier
Abstrakt

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(en)
Isotopenphysik
Externe Organisation(en)
Technische Universität München, Hebrew University Jerusalem, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Australian National University
Journal
Nature Communications
Band
6
Anzahl der Seiten
9
ISSN
2041-1723
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6956
Publikationsdatum
01-2015
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
103014 Kernphysik
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Physics and Astronomy(all), Chemistry(all), Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/abundance-of-live-244pu-in-deepsea-reservoirs-on-earth-points-to-rarity-of-actinide-nucleosynthesis(9b70d04c-2fbf-4d26-a5fe-0b2684e78788).html