Neutrinos, Fission Cycling, and the r-process

Abstract

It has long been suggested that fission cycling may play an important role in the r-process. Fission cycling can only occur in a very neutron rich environment. In traditional calculations of the neutrino driven wind of the core-collapse supernova, the environment is not sufficiently neutron rich to produce the r-process elements. However, we show that with a reduction of the electron neutrino flux coming from the supernova, fission cycling does occur and furthermore it produces an abundance pattern which is consistent with observed r-process abundance pattern in halo stars. Such a reduction can be caused by active-sterile neutrino oscillations or other new physics.