It turns out that the mechanisms by which calcium is supposed to have been produced in the first stars (that is, the stars of the third group), which are primitive stars formed from the material generated by the Big Bang, contradict the results of astronomical observations. Previously, it was thought that the main cause of the calcium production observed in all stars was exacerbated nuclear combustion and supernovae.
However, the researchers, in this published paper, point out the existence of a different type of calcium production pathway, which results from the “warm” carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) cycle, and they demonstrated this by direct experimental measurement of the reaction producing the isotope Ne -20″, between protons and gamma rays in the isotope fluorine “F-19”, down to extremely low levels of interaction energy of 186 keV. They report significant resonance at energy levels of 225 keV. In contexts of astrophysical interest, the rate of production of the isotope Ne-20 from this thermonuclear reaction increases, at a temperature of about 0.1 GK, at 7.4 times the previously likely rate. The stellar models created by the researchers show a more powerful eruption of the isotope Ne-20 during the burning of stellar hydrogen than previously thought, which may reveal the nature of calcium production in Group C stars, a process that is generated and is well established in the star SMSS0313. -6708, which is the oldest known star among stars that contain very little iron.
The researchers obtained their results at the Jinping Underground Laboratory in China, which provides an environment with extremely low levels of cosmic ray-induced background noise. It should be noted that the rate that the researchers reached for the occurrence of this interaction shows the effect that faint stellar supernovae arising from the stars of Group C can have on the observed nucleosynthesis process in the oldest known stars and the first galaxies, and this is one of the main objectives of the James Webb Telescope mission. Alien » James Webb Space Telescope.