What elements would be created in a star composed entirely of gold?
I'm working with the idea of creating a sun made out of pure gold. Of course, this would be completely man-made. Why would anyone want to do this? Because I want a cool concept like that in my story! :)
First, you start small, combining thousands of pounds of gold. And you continue to add more and more gold. And you end up with a small gold planet. How marvelous.
But we're not done! We continue to add more and more mass by continuing to add more and more gold.
Eventually, we'll reach a point where the mass is so great that the pure gold atoms begin to undergo nuclear fusion within the core of this massive gold planet. And thus, a star is born!
But, I have no idea what elements would be created from this.
After doing some basic research, I've learned that the only known stable isotope of gold is 197Au, so that should be a good starting point for people answering this question.
What elements are created during the initial nuclear fusion state of a gold star?
I also looked into the nuclear fusion process, but I have learned that it is a very complex process that I simply can't learn in the amount of time I have.
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1 answer
This star would not fuse gold.
Fusion reactions producing elements beyond zinc-60 are not energetically favorable; they are endothermic, and so consume energy. Several elements heavier than iron are formed through this fusion chain and subsequent decay (cobalt, nickel, copper and zinc), but these are unstable and decay back to iron, meaning that iron is essentially the heaviest stable element that can be formed in stars or involved in significant fusion.
Two exotic processes - the r-process and the s-process - can fuse heavier elements (see Burbidge et al. 1957, Clayton et al. 1961). These involve a neutron being captured by a so-called seed nucleus; repeated neutron capture produces heavier and heavier nuclei, and it is not unrealistic to think that gold could be involved.
However, these processes need neutron sources; even the slower s-process requires neutron densities of $10^{13}$ neutrons per cubic centimeter (Lugaro et al. 2016); the r-process may require neutron densities on the order of $10^{24}$ neutrons per cubic centimeter (see Burbidge et al.). As the star is made purely of gold, there is no existing neutron source (e.g. the fusion of carbon or neon nuclei with alpha particles), and therefore neither process can proceed.
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