Astrophysical nucleosynthesis is a family of diverse processes by which atomic nuclei undergo nuclear reactions and decay to form new nuclei. The complex nature nucleosynthesis, can involve as many tens thousands interactions between nuclei, makes it difficult study any one these in isolation using standard approaches. In this work, we present technique, tracing, that use quantify the relative ...

An overview of the main phases of the evolution of lowand intermediatemass stars is presented, and the different types of nucleosynthesis operating from the pre-main sequence up to and including the asymptotic giant branch phase described. The surface abundance modifications brought by each nucleosynthesis process is also briefly discussed. To appear in: Tours Symposium on Nuclear Physics III, ...

Recently it has been reported that there may be a discrepancy between big bang nucleosynthesis theory and observations (BBN crisis). We show that BBN predictions agree with the primordial abundances of light elements, 3 He and 7 Li inferred from the observational data if the electron neutrino has a net chemical potential ξ νe due to lepton asymmetry. We estimate that ξ νe = 0.043 Subject headin...

Limits are imposed upon the possible rate of change of extra spatial dimensions in Kaluza-Klein and superstring theories by considering the consequences of such changes for primordial nucleosynthesis and the positioning of nuclear resonance levels in samarium, carbon, and oxygen. Previous limits from nucleosynthesis had not included strong-interaction effects. The strongest limits constrain the...

We discuss toy models where supersymmetry is broken due to a nonvanishing time-varying vacuum expectation value of the inflaton field during preheating. We discuss the production of an inflatino, the superpartner of the inflaton, due to vacuum fluctuations and then we argue that they do not survive until nucleosynthesis and decay along with the inflaton to produce a thermal bath after preheatin...