B2FH paper

The B²FH paper^[1] was a landmark scientific paper on the origin of the chemical elements. The paper's title is Synthesis of the Elements in Stars, but it became known as B²FH from the initials of its authors: Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge, William A. Fowler, and Fred Hoyle. It was written from 1955 to 1956 at the University of Cambridge and Caltech, then published in Reviews of Modern Physics in 1957.

The B²FH paper reviewed stellar nucleosynthesis theory and supported it with astronomical and laboratory data. It identified nucleosynthesis processes that are responsible for producing the elements heavier than iron and explained their relative abundances. The paper became highly influential in both astronomy and nuclear physics.