The most promising astrophysical sources of kHz gravitational waves (GWs) are the inspiral and merger of binary neutron star(NS)/black hole systems.

The last decade has witnessed both quantitative and qualitative progress in shell-model studies, which have resulted in remarkable gains in our understanding of the structure of the nucleus. Indeed, it is now possible to diagonalize matrices in determinantal spaces of dimensionality up to ${10}^9$ using the Lanczos tridiagonal construction, whose formal and numerical aspects are analyzed in this review. In addition, many new approximation methods have been developed in order to overcome the dimensionality limitations. New effective nucleon-nucleon interactions have been constructed that contain both two- and three-body contributions. The former are derived from realistic potentials (i.e., potentials consistent with two-nucleon data). The latter incorporate the pure monopole terms necessary to correct the bad saturation and shell-formation properties of the realistic two-body forces. This combination appears to solve a number of hitherto puzzling problems. The present review concentrates on those results which illustrate the global features of the approach: the universality of the effective interaction and the capacity of the shell model to describe simultaneously all the manifestations of the nuclear dynamics, either single-particle or collective in nature. The review also treats in some detail the problems associated with rotational motion, the origin of quenching of the Gamow-Teller transitions, double-$\beta$ decays, the effect of isospin nonconserving nuclear forces, and the specificities of neutron-rich nuclei. Many other calculations—which appear to have “merely” spectroscopic interest—are touched upon briefly, although the authors are fully aware that much of the credibility of the shell model rests on them.

The production of about half of the heavy elements found in nature is assigned to a specific astrophysical nucleosynthesis process: the rapid neutron-capture process ($r$ process). Although this idea was postulated more than six decades ago, the full understanding faces two types of uncertainties or open questions: (a) The nucleosynthesis 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 theoretical 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, with no or negligible production of 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 ejection of matter that has previously experienced strong electron captures at high densities. Possible scenarios are the mergers of neutron stars, neutron-star–black hole mergers, but also include rare classes of supernovae as well as hypernovae or collapsars with polar jet ejecta, and possibly also accretion disk outflows related to the collapse of fast rotating massive stars. The composition of the ejecta from each event determines the temporal evolution of the $r$-process abundances during the “chemical” evolution of the Galaxy. Stellar $r$-process abundance observations have provided insight into and constraints on the frequency of and conditions in the responsible stellar production sites. One of them, neutron-star mergers, was just identified thanks to the observation of the $r$-process kilonova electromagnetic transient following the gravitational wave event GW170817. These observations, which are becoming increasingly 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 in determining the extent and nature of the earliest nucleosynthesis in the Galaxy. Combining new results and important breakthroughs in the related nuclear, atomic, and astronomical fields of science, this review attempts to answer the question “How were the elements from iron to uranium made?”

Recent experimental data and progress in nuclear structure modeling have led to improved descriptions of astrophysically important weak-interaction processes. This review discusses these advances and their applications to hydrostatic solar and stellar burning, to the slow and rapid neutron-capture processes, to neutrino nucleosynthesis, and to explosive hydrogen burning. Special emphasis is given to the weak-interaction processes associated with core-collapse supernovae. Despite significant progress, improvements in the modeling of these processes are still warranted and are expected to come from future radioactive ion-beam facilities.