Liquid–gas phase transition of supernova matter and its relation to nucleosynthesis Original Research Article

We investigate the liquid–gas phase transition of dense matter in supernova explosion systematically from ρB=10−10 to View the MathML source by using a relativistic mean field approach and a fragment based statistical model. The boiling temperature is determined and found to remain to be high for low density. Calculated fragment distribution shows that heavy elements around the first, second, and third peaks of r-process are abundantly formed as the baryon density increases at around the boiling temperatures inside the ν-sphere. At around the boiling temperature, various mass elements are formed even outside of the ν-sphere. These results suggest that the statistical distribution effects of fragment configurations in the coexisting region should be treated more carefully in the supernova explosion.