Theory considerations for nucleosynthesis beyond Fe with special emphasis on p-nuclei in massive stars

Abstract

Nucleosynthesis of heavy elements requires the use of different experimental and theoretical methods to determine astrophysical reaction rates than light element nucleosynthesis. Additionally, there are also larger uncertainties involved in the astrophysical models, both because the sites are not well known and because of differing numerical treatments in different models. As an example for the latter, the production of p-nuclei is compared in two different stellar models, demonstrating that a model widely used for postproduction calculations may have a zone grid too coarse to follow the synthesis of p-nuclei in detail.