IMPACT OF SUPERNOVA DYNAMICS ON THE νp-PROCESS

We study the impact of the late-time dynamical evolution of ejecta from core-collapse supernovae on nu p-process nucleosynthesis. Our results are based on hydrodynamical simulations of neutrino-driven wind ejecta. Motivated by recent two-dimensional wind simulations, we vary the dynamical evolution during the nu p-process and show that final abundances strongly depend on the temperature evolution. When the expansion is very fast, there is not enough time for antineutrino absorption on protons to produce enough neutrons to overcome the beta(+)-decay waiting points and no heavy elements beyond A = 64 are produced. The wind termination shock or reverse shock dramatically reduces the expansion speed of the ejecta. This extends the period during which matter remains at relatively high temperatures and is exposed to high neutrino fluxes, thus allowing for further (p, gamma) and (n, p) reactions to occur and to synthesize elements beyond iron. We find that the nu p-process starts to efficiently produce heavy elements only when the temperature drops below similar to 3 GK. At higher temperatures, due to the low alpha separation energy of Zn-60 (S-alpha = 2.7 MeV) the reaction Cu-59(p, alpha)Ni-56 is faster than the reaction Cu-59(p, gamma)Zn-60. This results in the closed NiCu cycle that we identify and discuss here for the first time. We also investigate the late phase of the nu p-process when the temperatures become too low to maintain proton captures. Depending on the late neutron density, the evolution to stability is dominated by beta(+) decays or by (n, gamma) reactions. In the latter case, the matter flow can even reach the neutron-rich side of stability and the isotopic composition of a given element is then dominated by neutron-rich isotopes.