The effects of thermonuclear reaction rate variations on nova nucleosynthesis

We investigate the effects of thermonuclear reaction rate uncertainties on nova nucleosynthesis. One-zone nucleosynthesis calculations have been performed by adopting temperature-density-time profiles of the hottest hydrogen-burning zone (i.e., the region in which most of the nucleosynthesis takes place). We obtain our profiles from 7 different, recently published, hydrodynamic nova simulations covering peak temperatures in the range from Tpeak=0.145-0.418 GK. For each of these profiles, we individually varied the rates of 175 reactions within their associated errors and analyzed the resulting abundance changes of 142 isotopes in the mass range below A=40. In total, we performed ≅7350 nuclear reaction network calculations. We find that present reaction rate estimates are reliable for predictions of Li, Be, C and N abundances in nova nucleosynthesis. However, rate uncertainties of several reactions have to be reduced significantly in order to predict more reliable O, F, Ne, Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, Cl and Ar abundances