Liquid-Gas Phase Transition of Supernova Matter and Its Relation to Nucleosynthesis

Abstract

We investigate the liquid-gas phase transition of dense matter in supernova explosion by the relativistic mean field approach and fragment based statistical model. The boiling temperature is found to be high (T_{boil} >= 0.7 MeV for rho_B >= 10^{-7} fm^{-3}), and adiabatic paths are shown to go across the boundary of coexisting region even with high entropy. This suggests that materials experienced phase transition can be ejected to outside. We calculated fragment mass and isotope distribution around the boiling point. We found that heavy elements at the iron, the first, second, and third peaks of r-process are abundantly formed at rho_B = 10^{-7}, 10^{-5}, 10^{-3} and 10^{-2} fm^{-3}, respectively.