Seminar in Hadronic Physics

Stellar Matter in supernova Explosions and Nuclear Multifragmentation

Alexandre Botvina

Institute for Nuclear Research
Russian Academy of Sciences

During the collapse of massive stars, and the supernova type-II explosions, stellar matter reaches densities and temperatures which are similar to the ones obtained in intermediate-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. The nuclear multifragmentation reactions can be used for determination of properties of nuclear matter at subnuclear densities, in the region of the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. It is demonstrated that the modified properties of hot nuclei (in particular, their symmetry energy) extracted from the multifragmentation data can essentially influence the nuclear composition of stellar matter. The effects of the modification of nuclear properties on weak processes and on the nucleosynthesis are also discussed.