Supernova Nucleosynthesis, Radioactive Nuclear Reactions and Neutrino-Mass Hierarchy

Abstract

The ν-process nucleosynthesis in core-collapse supernovae is a sensitive probe of unknown neutrino mass hierarchy through the MSW effect. We carefully studied the uncertainties of almost one hundred ν-induced and nuclear reactions associated with the nucleosynthesis and found that the ν-16O and 11C(α,p)14N reactions among them have the biggest effect on the final 7Li/11B isotopic abundance ratio. The neutrino mass hierarchy is constrained in our nucleosynthetic method with measured 7Li/11B value in SiC-X presolar grains. The inverted hierarchy is statistically more favored at the 2-σ C.L. [1].