The s-process in stellar sites

Abstract

Stars are marvellous caldrons where all the elements of the Universe (apartfrom hydrogen and helium) have been synthesized. The solar system chemical distri-butionis the result of many pollution episodes from already extinct stellar generations, occurred at different epochs before the Sun formation. Main nucleosynthesis channels re-sponsiblefor the formation of heavy elements are the rapid neutron capture process (ther-process) and the slow neutron capture process (the s-process). Hereafter, I will describethe theory of the s-process and the stellar sites where it is active.