Spallation in Dual-Shock Quark Nova: A Robust Nucleosynthetic Process

This thesis presents an alternate, spallation, nucleosynthesis mechanism in the context of the dual-shock Quark Nova (dsQN). The dsQN is an evolutionary channel where a core collapse supernova is followed by the detonation of its neutron star - an event that generates nuclear spallation reactions. Spallation produces new, daughter isotopes, by the fragmentation of larger nuclei - in contrast to conventional nucleosynthesis models which are based on the accretion of smaller nuclei and particles into larger nuclei. This spallation nucleosynthesis model is fairly extensive - it can produce abundant isotopes in the A < 130 mass range and therefore solve some of the issues faced by conventional r-process models. Furthermore, the specificities of dsQN spallation might be the key to explain the peculiarities of 44Ti production in the universe. Finally, dsQN spallation nucleosynthesis is fairly robust in relation to the universe’s age and the chemical composition of core-collapse supernovae.