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ASTROPHYSICS İ Edited by brahim Küçük ASTROPHYSICS Edited by İbrahim Küçük Astrophysics Edited by İbrahim Küçük Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2012 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. As for readers, this license allows users to download, copy and build upon published chapters even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Romina Skomersic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer InTech Design Team First published March, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected] Astrophysics, Edited by İbrahim Küçük p. cm. ISBN 978-953-51-0473-5 Contents Part 1 Nucleosynthesis 1 Chapter 1 Nuclear Excitation Processes in Astrophysical Plasmas 3 G. Gosselin, P. Mohr, V. Méot and P. Morel Chapter 2 Stellar Nucleosynthesis Nuclear Data Mining 21 Boris Pritychenko Chapter 3 The s-Process Nucleosynthesis in Massive Stars: Current Status and Uncertainties due to Convective Overshooting 41 M. L. Pumo Chapter 4 The r-Process of Nucleosynthesis: The Puzzle Is Still with Us 61 Marcel Arnould and Stephane Goriely Chapter 5 Diffuse Emission of 26Al and 60Fe in the Galaxy 89 Wei Wang Chapter 6 Energy Generation Mechanisms in Stellar Interiors 123 İbrahim Küçük Chapter 7 The Lane-Emden-Fowler Equation and Its Generalizations – Lie Symmetry Analysis 131 Chaudry Masood Khalique Part 2 High Energy Astrophysics 149 Chapter 8 The Missing Matter Problem: From the Dark Matter Search to Alternative Hypotheses 151 S. Capozziello, L. Consiglio, M. De Laurentis, G. De Rosa and C. Di Donato Chapter 9 A Microscopic Equation of State for Neutron-Rich Matter and Its Effect on Neutron Star Properties 179 Francesca Sammarruca VI Contents Chapter 10 Methods for Image Recognition of Charged Particle Tracks in Track Detector Data Automated Processing 213 A.B. Aleksandrov, N.G. Polukhina and N.I. Starkov Chapter 11 Implementation of Dynamic Logic Algorithm for Detection of EM Fields Scattered by Langmuir Soliton 245 V.I. Sotnikov, R.W. Deming and L. Perlovsky Chapter 12 Visualization Methods for Numerical Astrophysics 259 Werner Benger, Markus Haider, Harald Höller, Dominik Steinhauser, Josef Stöckl, Biagio Cosenza and Marcel Ritter Chapter 13 Asteroseismology of Vibration Powered Neutron Stars 287 Sergey Bastrukov, Renxin Xu, Junwei Yu, Irina Molodtsova and Hsiang-Kuang Chang Chapter 14 Energetic Charged Particles in the Heliosphere from 1-120 AU Measured by the Voyager Spacecraft 309 W.R. Webber Chapter 15 A Comparison of Non Negative Blind Source Separation Methods for Identifying Astrophysical Ice Compounds 325 Jorge Igual and Raul llinares Part 3 Cosmology 341 Chapter 16 Graviton Emission in the Bulk and Nucleosynthesis in a Model with Extra Dimension 343 Mikhail Z. Iofa Chapter 17 Putting Einstein to Test – Astrometric Experiments from Space, Fundamental Physics and Local Cosmology 365 Alberto Vecchiato Chapter 18 BBN as Probe of Fundamental Physics 385 L. A. Popa and A. Caramete Part 1 Nucleosynthesis 1 Nuclear Excitation Processes in Astrophysical Plasmas G. Gosselin1, P. Mohr2,3, V. Méot1 and P. Morel1 1CEA,DAM,DIF, Arpajon 2Diakonie-Klinikum, Schwäbisch Hall 3ATOMKI, Debrecen 1France 2Germany 3Hungary 1. Introduction In general, nuclear transitions are almost independent of the atomic environment of the nucleus. This feature is a basic prerequisite for the widely used nuclear chronometers (with the most famous example of 14C, the so-called radiocarbon dating). However, a closer look at the details of nuclear transitions shows that under special circumstances the atomic environment may affect nuclear transitions. This is most obvious for electron capture decays where the nucleus captures an electron (typically from the lowest K-shell). A nice example for the experimental verification of this effect is the dependence of the electron capture half- life of 7Be on the chemical form of the beryllium sample (Ohtsuki et al., 2004). Also the half- lives of --decays may be affected by the environment: for fully ionized nuclei the emitted electron may remain in the (otherwise completely occupied) K-shell, thus enhancing the decay Q-value and decay rate. An experimental verification was found for 187Re (Bosch et al., 1996). As electron densities in solids may also vary with temperature (e.g. in the Debye- Hückel model), -decay half-lives may also depend on temperature. However, the latest study of the decay branching between --decay and +-decay/electron capture in 74As could not confirm earlier claims in this direction (Farkas et al., 2009). The relevance of temperature and density dependence of --decay has been studied in detail in the review (Takahashi and Yokoi, 1987). Contrary to the above mentioned -decays where the role of electrons in the environment of the nucleus is obvious, the present study investigates electromagnetic transitions in nuclei. We also do not analyze electron screening where stellar reaction rates between charged particles at extremely low energies are enhanced because the repulsive Coulomb force between the positively charged nuclei is screened by the electrons in the stellar plasma. Details on electron screening can also be found in this book (Kücük, 2012) and in the latest review of solar fusion reactions (Adelberger et al., 2011). The electromagnetic transitions under study in this chapter are extremely important in almost any astrophysical scenario. Capture reactions like (p,), (n,), and (,) play key roles