The production of about half the heavy elements (beyond Fe and Ni) found in nature is assigned to a specific astrophysical nucleosynthesis process: the rapid neutron capture process (r process). Although this idea has been postulated more than six decades ago, the full understanding faces two types of uncertainties/open questions: (a) The nucle- osynthesis path in the nuclear chart runs close to the neutron-drip line, where presently only limited experimental information is available, and one has to rely strongly on the- oretical predictions for nuclear properties. (b) While for many years the occurrence of the r process has been associated with supernovae, where the innermost ejecta close to the central neutron star were supposed to be neutron-rich, more recent studies have cast substantial doubts on this environment. Possibly only a weak r process, not producing 2 the third r-process peak, can be accounted for, while much more neutron-rich conditions, including an r-process path with fission-cycling, are likely responsible for the majority of the heavy r-process elements. Such conditions could result during the ejection of initially highly neutron-rich matter, as found in neutron stars, or during the fast ejec- tion of matter which has prior experienced strong electron-captures at high densities. Possible scenarios are the mergers of neutron stars, neutron-star black hole mergers, but include also rare classes of supernovae/hypernovae with polar jet ejecta (and possibly also accretion disk out flows in case of black hole formation) related to the collapse of fast rotating massive stars with high magnetic fields. The composition of the ejecta from each event determines the temporal evolution of the r-process abundances during the " evolution of the Galaxy. Stellar r-process abundance observations, have pro- vided insights into, and constraints on the frequency of and conditions in the responsible stellar production sites. One of them, neutron star mergers, just identified thanks to the observation of the r-process kilonova electromagnetic transient, AT 2017gfo, following the Gravitational wave event GW170817. These observations, increasingly more precise due to improved experimental atomic data and high resolution observations, have been particularly important in defining the heavy element abundance patterns of the old halo stars, and thus determining the extent, and nature, of the earliest nucleosynthesis in our Galaxy. Combining new results and important breakthroughs in the related nuclear, atomic and astronomical fields of science, this review attempts to provide an answer to the question Were the Elements from Iron to Uranium Made? …

中文翻译：

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最重元素的起源：快速中子捕获过程

自然界中大约一半的重元素（除了铁和镍之外）的产生被分配给特定的天体物理核合成过程：快速中子捕获过程（r过程）。尽管这个想法已经被假定了六十多年了，但是全面的理解面临着两种类型的不确定性/悬而未决的问题：（a）核图中的核合成路径接近中子滴线，目前只有有限的实验信息是可利用的，人们必须强烈依靠对核特性的理论预测。（b）多年来，r过程的发生一直与超新星有关，在超新星中，靠近中子中心星的最内层喷射应该被认为是富含中子的，但最近的研究对这种环境产生了很大的怀疑。可能只解释了一个弱的r过程，而不是第三个r过程峰产生2，而更多的中子富集条件，包括带有裂变循环的r过程路径，可能是造成大部分重子过程的原因。 r进程元素。这样的条件可能是在最初射出高度中子的物质（如在中子星中发现）的过程中，或是在先前已经以高密度进行过强电子捕获的物质的快速射出过程中导致的。可能的情况是中子星合并，中子星黑洞合并，但也包括极少数种类的超新星/超新星与极地射流喷射（以及在黑洞形成的情况下还可能吸积盘流出），这与快速坍塌有关旋转具有高磁场的大质量恒星。这篇综述结合了相关核，原子和天文科学领域的新成果和重要突破，试图为以下问题提供答案：元素是从铁到铀制成的？…