r-Process Nucleosynthesis without Excess Neutrons

Matter expanding sufficiently rapidly and at high enough entropy per nucleon can enter a heavy-element synthesis regime heretofore unexplored. In this extreme regime, more similar to nucleosynthesis in the early universe than to that typical in stellar explosive environments, there is a persistent disequilibrium between free nucleons and abundant alpha particles, which allows heavy r-process nucleus production even in matter with more protons than neutrons. This observation bears on the issue of the site of the r process, on the variability of abundance yields from r-process events, and on constraints on neutrino physics derived from nucleosynthesis.