Published in Handbook of Nuclear Chemistry, by Vertes, Attila; Nagy, Sandor; Klencsar, Zoltan; Lovas, Rezso G.; Rosch, Frank, ISBN 978-1-4419-0719-6. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2011, p. 611.

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ORIGIN OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS

T. Rauscher 1 & A. Patkós 2


1 Department of Physics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
2 Department of Atomic Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary


Abstract: This chapter provides the necessary background from astrophysics, nuclear, and particle physics to understand the cosmic origin of the chemical elements. It reflects the year 2008 state of the art in this extremely quickly developing interdisciplinary research direction. The discussion summarizes the nucleosynthetic processes in the course of the evolution of the Universe and the galaxies contained within, including primordial nucleosynthesis, stellar evolution, and explosive nucleosynthesis in single and binary systems.


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