The Mean Lifetimes of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen Nuclei in the CNO Bicycle.

An analysis is made of recent experimental data on the seven-proton reactions of the CNO bi-cycle. The mean lifetimes in years for the nuclei C , C13, N14, N11, 016, and 017 in hydrogen-burning are given in the form of a table of log TpXH/lOO over the temperature range 5 x x 106 degrees. The characteristic mean lifetime of the entire double cycle is also given. Beta decay lifetimes are neglected but can be included in individual cases without difficulty. Under equilibrium conditions at all temperatures, the bi-cycle essentially processes input nuclei, such as C or 016, primarily into N14. The time scale for the approach to equilibrium is long (>10 years) for 016 at T < 17 x 106 degrees and for C12 at T < 10 x 106 degrees For T > 100 x 106, the nature of the reactions involved changes considerably.