Temperature for helium-3 freeze-out

ID: temperature-for-helium-3-freeze-out

Equilibrium fails where the helium-3 relaxation time becomes comparable to stellar age. In a fixed-density pp-I scaling with reaction exponents four and sixteen, the equilibrium abundance scales as and the relaxation time as . Central normalization then places the transition near six million kelvin; using the full supplied exponential factors gives a somewhat higher estimate. A precise radius or temperature requires a stellar mass density/composition profile and the second branch contribution.

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