The anthropic significance of the existence of an excited state of 12C
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Livio et al. (1989) found one could increase the energy of the 0+ level by 60 keV without affecting the level of carbon production.
“They found one could increase the energy of the level by 60 keV without effecting the level of carbon production.”
From The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life (2012) · cites this paper as Livio et al. (1989)
The permitted shift represents a 0.7% change in the energy of the level itself.
“The permitted shift represents a 0.7% change in the energy of the level itself.”
From The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life (2012) · cites this paper as Livio et al. (1989)
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“Stenger quotes the work of Livio et al. (1989), who considered the effect on the carbon and oxygen production of stars when the 0þ level is shifted.”
Background<i>Planck</i>intermediate results: XXIV. Constraints on variations in fundamental constants⋆
Planck Collaboration:, Ade, P. A. R., Aghanim, N., Arnaud, M., Ashdown, M., Aumont, J., Baccigalupi, C., Banday, A. J., Barreiro, R. B., Battaner, E., et al. (2015) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201424496 · Cited by 125 · see citing works
“74 82 v1 [ as tr Planck Collaboration: Fundamental constants 2013), population III stars (Livio et al. 1989; Ekström et al. 2010; Coc et al. 2009), cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies (see below for details), and big bang nucleosynthesis at z ∼ 108 (Bergström et al. 1999; Müller et…”
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“The quantitative effect of changes of the resonance energy away from its value of 288 keV was studied in [413].”
BackgroundResultInfluentialStellar production rates of carbon and its abundance in the universe.
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“There have been several studies on the sensitivity of carbon production to the underlying nuclear rates (Barrow 1987; Livio et al. 1989; Fairbairn 1999; Csótó et al. 2001; Oberhummer et al. 2000, 2003; Schlattl et al. 2004; Tur et al. 2007).”
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“Accounting solely for the uncertainties in GUT and nucleon models, changes in the C and O yields of a few 10% are not inconceivable, when considering the results of Livio et al. (1989) and Paper I.”
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“94 Livio et al. (1989, p. 284). For a sharper antianthropic conclusion based on the calculations of Livio et al.f see Klee (2002); and for a critique of Klee's arguments, see Walker and Čirkovič (2003).”
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“In this sense, the CO 2 Fermi resonance may be seen as somewhat analogous to the nuclear resonances in astrophysics that give rise to the production of heavy elements in stellar interiors ( Hoyle 1954; Livio et al. 1989 ) .”
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“Note that such correlations related to the production of carbon have indeed been speculated upon earlier [49, 50].”
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“Equally important is the fact that the reaction to fuse oxygen from a carbon and a helium is slightly endothermic, so that the carbon initially created is not immediately destroyed [55].”
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“Unfortunately, Klee cites just one of these modern studies, and the oldest one at that (Livio et al. 1989), the results of which (as Klee correctly sees) could be called critical toward the conventional anthropic view of these nuclear resonances.”
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- Authors
- Livio, M., Hollowell, D., Weiss, A., & Truran, J. W.
- Affiliations
- Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (IL)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 1989-07
- Volume
- 340
- Issue
- 6231
- Pages
- 281-284
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2032378914
- Cited by
- 57
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 0.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Nuclear physics research studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Keywords
- carbon-12 excited states, triple-alpha process, anthropic principle, stellar nucleosynthesis, heavy element nucleosynthesis
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