Nuclear properties in early stages of stellar collapse

The spectroscopy of electron capture neutrinos emitted from nearby pre-supernova collapsing stars before the neutrino trapping sets in, can yield useful information on the physical conditions and on the nuclear composition of the core. The neutrino spectrum depends on the thermodynamic conditions of the core, the nuclear abundances, the lepton fractions and relevant nuclear properties. In the pre-trapping core of a core-collapse supernova, the density ranges from $0.1 - 100~10^{10}$ g/cm$^3$ and the temperature from $0.2 - 1.5$ MeV. The nuclear abundances as well as the electron capture rates are thus determined, among other things, by the nuclear binding energies and the free nucleon chemical potentials. Because shell and pairing effects persist strongly up to temperatures of $\simeq 0.5$ MeV, any equation of state (EOS) relevant to this phase of the collapse must reproduce well the zero temperature nuclear properties and it must show a smooth transition to the known high temperature and high density limits. In this work we use the microscopic Relativistic Mean Field (RMF) theory based on a Lagrangian with non-linear self-interactions of the $\sigma$-field for the neutron-rich nuclei of interest in the $f-p$ shell to determine nuclear chemical potentials. We compare these results with those computed from an EOS calculated with the macroscopic liquid drop model. We also discuss extensions to finite temperature and we incorporate nuclear lattice effects into the microscopic calculations.