Related papers: Early Solar System $r$-process Abundances Limit Co…
We present a review of the possible sources for r-process nuclei. It is known that there is as yet no self-consistent mechanism to provide abundant neutrons for a robust r-process in the neutrino-driven winds from nascent neutron stars. We…
We present the abundance analyses for the neutron-capture elements, and discuss the observed abundance distributions in very metal-poor stars with excesses of r-process elements. As has been found by previous abundance studies, the…
Metal-poor stars were formed during the early epochs when only massive stars had time to evolve and contribute to the chemical enrichment. Low-mass metal-poor stars survive until the present and provide fossil records of the nucleosynthesis…
There has been a persistent conundrum in attempts to model the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements by rapid neutron capture (the $r$-process). Although the location of the abundance peaks near nuclear mass numbers 130 and 195 identify an…
Collapsars - rapidly rotating stellar cores that form black holes - can power gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and are proposed to be key contributors to the production of heavy elements in the Universe via the rapid neutron capture process…
A variety of stellar explosions powered by black hole accretion are discussed. All involve the failure of neutrino energy deposition to launch a strong supernova explosion. A key quantity which determines the type of high energy transient…
Recent calculations place questions on the ability of supernovae to produce r-process nuclei in the correct amounts. We present results from 3D Newtonian SPH calculations of mergers of equal mass neutron star binaries. We find the amounts…
Abundance observations indicate the presence of rapid-neutron capture (i.e., r-process) elements in old Galactic halo and globular cluster stars. These observations demonstrate that the earliest generations of stars in the Galaxy,…
We report Sr, Pd and Ag abundances for a sample of metal-poor field giants and analyze a larger sample of Y, Zr, and Ba abundances. The [Y/Zr] and [Pd/Ag] abundance ratios are similar to those measured for the r-process-rich stars CS…
We determine the abundances of neutron-capture elements from Sr to Eu for five very-metal-poor stars (-3<[Fe/H]<-2) in the Milky Way halo to reveal the origin of light neutron-capture elements. Previous spectroscopic studies have shown…
Supernova explosions of massive stars are one of the primary sites for the production of the elements in the universe. Up to now, stars with zero-age main-sequence masses in the range of 35--50~$M_\odot$ had mostly been representing the…
Observations of metal-poor stars indicate that at least two different nucleosynthesis sites contribute to the production of r-process elements. One site is responsible for the production of light r-process elements Z<~50 while the other…
All the current r-process scenarios relevant to core-collapse supernovae are facing severe difficulties. In particular, recent core-collapse simulations with neutrino transport show no sign of a neutron-rich wind from the proto-neutron…
The composition of the early Solar System can be inferred from meteorites. Many elements heavier than iron were formed by the rapid neutron-capture process (r process), but the astrophysical sources where this occurred remain poorly…
We quantify the stellar abundances of neutron-rich r-process nuclei in cosmological zoom-in simulations of a Milky Way-mass galaxy from the Feedback In Realistic Environments project. The galaxy is enriched with r-process elements by binary…
Some of the heavy elements, such as gold and europium (Eu), are almost exclusively formed by the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). However, it is still unclear which astrophysical site between core-collapse supernovae and neutron…
We investigate synthesis of heavy elements in a collapsar. We have calculated detailed composition of magnetically driven jets ejected from a collapsar, which is based on long-term, magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of a rapidly rotating…
The chemical abundances of metal-poor stars provide important clues to explore stellar formation history and set significant constraints on models of the r-process. In this work, we find that the abundance patterns of the light and iron…
Although the rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process, is fundamentally important for explaining the origin of approximately half of the stable nuclei with A > 60, the astrophysical site of this process has not been identified yet. Here…
Abundance observations indicate the presence of rapid-neutron capture (i.e., r-process) elements in old Galactic halo and globular cluster stars. These observations demonstrate that the earliest generations of stars in the Galaxy,…