Ignition of carbon burning from nuclear fission in compact stars

C. J. Horowitz

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Ignition of carbon burning from nuclear fission in compact stars

C. J. Horowitz

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Submitted 29 Jul 2022

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim We perform thermal diffusion simulations and find at high densities, above about 7x10^8 g/cm^3, that the fission heating can ignite carbon burning.

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Compiled by classifier-1.13.0 via TypeSafe API, question bank abstract-p1-20260923, 2026-09-23: 1 request, 4,846 input tokens.

What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.10 · states limitation 0.16 · human participants 0.01 · controlled comparison 0.02 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.97 · compares with prior results 0.11 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

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Type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are powerful stellar explosions that provide important distance indicators in cosmology. Recently, we proposed a new SN Ia mechanism that involves a nuclear fission chain reaction in an isolated white dwarf (WD) [PRL 126, 1311010]. The first solids that form as a WD starts to freeze are actinide rich and potentially support a fission chain reaction. In this letter we explore thermonuclear ignition from fission heating. We perform thermal diffusion simulations and find at high densities, above about 7x10^8 g/cm^3, that the fission heating can ignite carbon burning. This could produce a SN Ia or another kind of astrophysical transient.

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What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	Type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are powerful stellar explosions that provide important distance indicators in cosmology.	background 1.00	0.04	0.02	asserted 1.00
s1	Recently, we proposed a new SN Ia mechanism that involves a nuclear fission chain reaction in an isolated white dwarf (WD) [PRL 126, 1311010].	contribution 0.66	0.86	0.08	asserted 0.91
s2	The first solids that form as a WD starts to freeze are actinide rich and potentially support a fission chain reaction.	background 0.97	0.14	0.04	hedged possibility 0.87
s3	In this letter we explore thermonuclear ignition from fission heating.	contribution 0.99	0.56	0.06	asserted 0.74
s4	We perform thermal diffusion simulations and find at high densities, above about 7x10^8 g/cm^3, that the fission heating can ignite carbon burning.	result 1.00	0.97	0.83	asserted 1.00
s5	This could produce a SN Ia or another kind of astrophysical transient.	interpretation 1.00	0.23	0.23	hedged possibility 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: simulation study 1.00 · evidence from simulation or computation 1.00.

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Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

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Original abstract

Type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are powerful stellar explosions that provide important distance indicators in cosmology. Recently, we proposed a new SN Ia mechanism that involves a nuclear fission chain reaction in an isolated white dwarf (WD) [PRL 126, 1311010]. The first solids that form as a WD starts to freeze are actinide rich and potentially support a fission chain reaction. In this letter we explore thermonuclear ignition from fission heating. We perform thermal diffusion simulations and find at high densities, above about 7x10^8 g/cm^3, that the fission heating can ignite carbon burning. This could produce a SN Ia or another kind of astrophysical transient.

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1 arXiv paper cite this in 2 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

What it cites · 3 sentences without a confident label

Builds on 1 paper

Next, we extend the fission reaction network simulations of [ref] to higher densities.

Nuclear fission reaction simulations in compact stars · Introduction · 1.00

Uses data or values from 1 paper

Nuclear reaction network simulations were presented in [ref] , see Fig. [ref], where the fission heating rate per baryon $Ṡ_fis$ was calculated, see Fig. [ref].

Nuclear fission reaction simulations in compact stars · Formalism · 0.84

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