Nuclear Physics Seminar

According to modern theory and cosmological simulations, the very
first generation of stars that formed in the universe typically
were much more massive than stars forming today. These first stars formed from the material left behind by the big bang, almost exclusively hydrogen and helium. Their resulting evolution and explosive deaths were much different from modern supernovae, with a different central engine and a much more powerful explosion. The resulting nucleosynthesis signatures, the ashes of the explosion, are predicted to show the fingerprint of this peculiar initial condition and evolution. No such fingerprint has ever been found in the observations, however. On the other hand, it will be shown that some not so massive stars with not so powerful explosions seem to be able to explain much of what was observed and considered to be the ashes of the first stars.