Affiliation:
1. Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Abstract
The nucleosynthesis of chemical elements has been established to be the result of a variety of different types of nuclear reactions in stars. Under the extreme temperatures and densities encountered in such environments, nuclear isomers can be populated and thus complicate our understanding of these processes. In this paper, I have chosen to discuss five cases that illustrate how nuclear isomers can play important roles in the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements.
Subject
Condensed Matter Physics,Nuclear and High Energy Physics,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics