β-decay of neutron-rich nuclei around ¹⁵⁸Nd and the origin of rare-earth elements

A large fraction of the rare-earth elements around mass number A = 160 observed in the solar system are produced in the astrophysical rapid (r-) neutron capture process. However, current stellar models cannot completely explain the relative abundance of these elements partially because of nuclear physics uncertainties. To address this problem, a β-decay spectroscopy experiment was performed at the RI Beam Factory (RIBF), aimed at studying a wide region of very neutron-rich nuclei around ¹⁵⁸Nd. The data from this experiment provides a test of nuclear models as well as experimental inputs for r-process calculations. (author)