Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-2002

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Physics

Major Professor

Mike Guidry

Committee Members

Kermit Duckett, William Raphael Hix, Michael Smith, Marianne Breinig

Abstract

Nucleosynthesis occurs in such diverse astrophysical phenomena as ordinary stars, like our own Sun, supernovae, novae, X-ray bursts, and the Big Bang. Large sets of nuclear reaction rates for hundreds of seed isotopes are utilized in simulations of these nucleosynthesis processes. A cross-platform, Java software package called REACLIB aLIVe! has been developed with intuitive graphical interfaces and interactive controls to produce custom one-dimensional plots of reaction rates. The points used for these plots are calculated from exponential fits whose parameters, along with other quantities, make up the REACLIB Nuclear Reaction Rate Library. The software offers nuclear astrophysicists the capability to rapidly display any of 8000 nuclear reactions in the library, as well as to add new reaction rates and compare them to ones in the library. The plots produced by the software may be exported in the postscript format, which is easily edited and incorporated into papers, presentations, and websites. The software is available over the World Wide Web or as a downloadable Java archive file.

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Physics Commons

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