Measuring the Half-life of R-Process Nucleus Sb

I analyzed data taken from an experiment on nuclei near Sb. After cutting out noise, calculating the background rate, and removing unwanted particles from the data, I made reasonable decay curves for Sb and Sb. I believe that the half-life of Sb, previously unmeasured, is 0.36 s ± 0.14 s. Introduction Nuclear astrophysicists tend to be very interested in the origins of the elements making up the universe, and it’s a topic of great interest for the overall scientific community and the general public. The elements up to iron (atomic number 26) can be accounted for by nuclear fusion fueling stars like the sun, but this process still leaves the elements heavier than iron unaccounted for. Currently, it is understood that about half of the elements heavier than iron are created immediately after the supernova explosions of very massive stars in a chain of events known as the r-process. During a supernova, a star’s iron core begins to collapse into a neutron star, starting with the inside and spreading outward. The collapse sends out a shock wave that dissociates some of the matter on the outside of the core into protons and neutrons and sends it flying out into space. The newly formed neutron star immediately begins cooling through neutrino emission, and some of the released neutrinos and anti-neutrinos interact with the protons and neutrons. Because anti-neutrinos encounter less interference from the matter inside the neutron star than neutrinos, the anti-neutrinos can emerge from the deeper and hotter portions of the neutron star and will therefore have more energy on average than the neutrinos. This means that the reaction