Impact of Decay-Chain Feeding by Long-Lived Heavy Nuclei on Nuclear Cosmochronology

Clicks: 11
ID: 332207
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #1,150 of 1,327 articles by views in monthly notices of the royal astronomical society

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 1,327 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract Nuclear cosmochronology provides an independent method for determining the ages of astrophysical objects without relying on Galactic chemical evolution models. Long-lived radioactive actinides synthesized via the rapid neutron-capture process (r-process) particularly thorium and uranium serve as ideal chronometric nuclei. However, predicting the initial abundances of these nuclei and their subsequent long-term evolution remains a major source of uncertainty in nuclear cosmochronology. In this work, we investigate the impact of decay-chain feeding from long-lived progenitor nuclei on nuclear cosmochronology and estimate the corresponding age corrections. We develop a self-consistent radioactive decay network that includes all relevant decay pathways and couple it to r-process nucleosynthesis calculations. By tracking the long-term evolution of r-process nucleosynthesis based on neutron star merger trajectories, the dominant long-lived nuclei shaping the evolution of the chronometric elements Th and U are identified as 232Th, 235U, 236U, 238U, and 244Pu. It is found that delayed feeding substantially modifies the long-term evolution of actinides particularly for 232Th, which receives significant late-time contributions from heavier progenitor nuclei such as 244Pu and 236U. As a consequence, the U/Th and Th/X chronometers exhibit significant sensitivity to delayed feeding from the progenitor nuclei 244Pu and 236U, with age corrections reaching ∼5 Gyr. These results suggest that decay-chain feeding from long-lived progenitor nuclei plays a crucial role in nuclear cosmochronology and should be properly accounted for in age determinations based on actinide chronometers.
Reference Key
openalex_W7221693039 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Qiuhong Chen, Meng-Hua Chen, 杨宪林, En-Wei Liang
Are you one of these authors? Claim your profile
Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1940
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1940
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.