The rp-Process in Core-collapse Supernovae

Recent hydrodynamic simulations of core‐collapse supernovae with accurate neutrino transport suggest that the bulk of the neutrino‐heated ejecta is proton rich, in which the production of some interesting proton‐rich nuclei is expected. However, there are a number of waiting point nuclei with the β+‐lives of a few minutes, which prevent the production of heavy proton‐rich nuclei beyond iron in explosive events such as core‐collapse supernovae. In this study, it is shown that the rapid proton‐capture (rp) process takes place by bypassing these waiting points via neutron‐capture reactions even in the proton‐rich environment, if there is an intense neutrino flux as expected during the early phase of the neutrino‐driven winds of core‐collapse supernovae. The nucleosynthesis calculations imply that the neutrino‐driven winds can be potentially the origin of light p‐nuclei including 92,94Mo and 96,98Ru, which cannot be explained by other astrophysical sites.