Mission Statement
Our goal is to provide a complete set of the latest stellar reaction rates available in the literature. Our philosophy is to provide what we would put together would we have to do an astrophysical model calculation today.The JINA reaclib project is not a detailed reaction rate evaluation effort, where rates are recalculated based on various data sources (though members of the reaclib team might be engaged in such activities and, after publication, the results might end up in reaclib). Rather, we continuously evaluate rates given in the literature to determine whether they should supersede the currently recommended rate version. This can be single published rates, published rate evaluations, or theoretical rate predictions.
The criterion for a rate to supersede what is currently recommended is whether - with the current state of scientific knowledge - the new rate is an improvement over the old rate. A scientific advisory committee helps make this judgement call. We realize that as knowledge increases over time rates will change and might sometimes even revert back to previous values. Our goal is for our rates to converge over time (with some scatter) to the correct value.
In cases where there are many conflicting data or where an adequate evaluation has not been published, we defer the rate for "future evaluation". We hope that this category provides a valuable collection of published literature, and motivates comprehensive evaluations which can then be incorporated into reaclib once published.
Our goal is fast turnaround for updates to ensure model calculations use the latest nuclear physics. To address the need for continuity - for example when comparing model calculations of different groups - we provide defined snapshots that can be chosen as an alternative to the latest recommended rates.
Users can create their own reaction rate libraries, which can then be made accessible to others to look up the rates used, or to download the same set for comparison calculations.
We strive to provide accurate reaction rates in the sense that the rate values in the database match the referenced source within 5%. A frequently generated deviations file listing known problems is made available.