Related papers: Early Solar System $r$-process Abundances Limit Co…
The production of elements by rapid neutron capture (r-process) in neutron-star mergers is expected theoretically and is supported by multimessenger observations of gravitational-wave event GW170817: this production route is in principle…
The merger of two neutron stars or of a neutron star and a black hole often result in the ejection of a few percents of a solar mass of matter expanding at high speed in space. Being matter coming from the violent disruption of a neutron…
The heaviest elements in the Universe are synthesized through rapid neutron capture ($r$-process) in extremely neutron rich outflows. Neutron star mergers were established as an important $r$-process source through the multi-messenger…
The astrophysical origin of the rapid neutron-capture process (r-process), which produces about half of the elements heavier than iron, remains uncertain. The oldest, most metal-poor stars preserve the chemical signatures of early…
We use observations of heavy elements in very metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] < -2.5) in order to place constraints on the viability of collapsar models as a significant source of the r-process. We combine bipolar explosion nucleosynthesis…
Various nucleosynthesis studies have pointed out that the r-process elements in very metal-poor (VMP) halo stars might have different origins. By means of familiar concepts from statistics (correlations, cluster analysis, rank tests of…
It is unclear if neutron star mergers can explain the observed r-process abundances of metal-poor stars. Collapsars, defined here as rotating massive stars whose collapse results in a rapidly accreting disk around a black hole that can…
We develop a high-performance analytical model of Galactic Chemical Evolution, which accounts for delay time distributions and lock-up of stellar yields in a thermal-phased ISM. The model is capable of searching, for the first time, through…
(Abridged) The stellar sites and the complete mechanism of r-process nucleosynthesis are still unresolved issues. From consideration of the observed abundances in metal-poor stars, it is proposed that the production of the heavy r-process…
The astrophysical nature of r-process sites is a long standing mystery and many probable sources have been suggested in the past, among them lower-mass core-collapse supernovae (in the range 8 - 10 Msol), higher-mass core-collapse…
Rapid neutron capture process (r-process) elements have been detected in a large fraction of metal-poor halo stars, with abundances relative to iron (Fe) that vary by over two orders of magnitude. This scatter is reduced to less than a…
We investigate nucleosynthesis in the sub-relativistic outflows from black hole (BH) accretion disks formed in failed supernovae from rapidly-rotating Wolf-Rayet stars. These disks reach the neutrino-cooled regime during a portion of their…
The origin of r-process elements remains unidentified and still puzzles us. The recent discovery of evidence for the ejection of r-process elements from a short-duration gamma-ray burst singled out neutron star mergers (NSMs) as their…
The abundances of r-process elements of very metal-poor stars capture the history of the r-process enrichment in the early stage of star formation in a galaxy. Currently, various types of astrophysical sites including neutron star mergers,…
We study the evolution of rapid neutron-capture process (r-process) isotopes in the Galaxy. We analyze relative contributions from core collapse supernovae (CCSNe), neutron star mergers (NSMs) and collapsars under a range of astrophysical…
Probing the origin of r-process elements in the universe represents a multi-disciplinary challenge. We review the observational evidence that probe the properties of r-process sites, and address them using galactic chemical evolution…
We consider $r$-process nucleosynthesis in outflows from black hole accretion discs formed in double neutron star and neutron star -- black hole mergers. These outflows, powered by angular momentum transport processes and nuclear…
The existence of neutron star mergers has been supported since the discovery of the binary pulsar and the observation of its orbital energy loss, consistent with General Relativity. They are considered nucleosynthesis sites of the rapid…
We use cosmological, magnetohydrodynamical simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies from the Auriga project to study their enrichment with rapid neutron capture (r-process) elements. We implement a variety of enrichment models from both…
Nucleosynthesis of heavy nuclei in metal-poor stars is generally thought to occur via the r-process because the r-process is a primary process that would have operated early in the Galaxy's history. This idea is strongly supported by the…