Smashing Neutrons: On the Origin of Extreme r-process Enhanced Stars

Title: Extreme r-process enhanced stars at high metallicity in Fornax

Authors: M. Reichert, C. J. Hansen, A. Arcones

First Author’s Institution: Technische Universität Darmstadt, Institut für Kernphysik; Helmholtz Forschungsakademie Hessen für FAIR, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung

Status: Open access on arXiv

What are metals?

Astronomers, much to the chagrin of chemists, refer to elements heavier than hydrogen or helium as “metals.” In fact, the most abundant “metals” in the Universe, like oxygen and carbon, are not metals at all. Nonetheless, today’s bite focuses on actual heavy metals. While many elements are forged either in the end stages of a massive star’s life in a core-collapse supernova or the death of a white dwarf as a thermonuclear supernova, some elements must be produced in even more exotic ways. These include the s-process and r-process, referring to slow and rapid neutron capture respectively. The s-process occurs in stars, in particular in Asymptotic Giant Branch or AGB stars, the very end stages of a low mass star’s life. The r-process however requires many more neutrons to be captured quickly. There are two possible channels for the r-process, binary neutron star mergers and exotic supernovae.

To date, astronomers have studied such heavy elements primarily by looking at the spectra of stars and determining abundances of the various elements. Recently, studies of r-process enhanced stars, have suggested that many of these stars were born in dwarf galaxies, and later accreted into the Milky Way. To test this and understand the physics behind r-process enhanced stars, the authors of today’s paper turned towards our neighbor, the massive dwarf spheroidal galaxy Fornax.

Odd ones out

In their study of the stellar populations of Fornax, the authors found three stars with significantly enhanced r-process elements as compared to the rest of the population. In particular, the abundance of the rare element europium (Eu) is roughly an order of magnitude higher than other stars in Fornax. For this reason, the authors refer to them as Eu-stars. Figure 1 shows these Eu-stars compared with normal Fornax stars and other r-process enhanced stars. There is a general trend between metallicity ([Fe/H]) and the absolute Eu abundances, which holds true for both the r-process enhanced and comparison stars, but here enhancement refers to a star lying significantly above the average Eu abundance at a given [Fe/H].

Interestingly, when the authors compare the alpha abundances (essentially the elements created in massive stars) of the Eu-stars and normal stars, they find that the r-process stars are not alpha-enhanced (see Fig. 2 in the paper). This suggests that either the Eu found in the r-process enhanced stars was either produced by a neutron star merger (due to the lack of helium in these systems) or that the supernova that produced the Eu created similar amounts of alpha elements to other supernovae.

Confirming an r-process origin

Neutron capture elements like Eu can be created both with the r-process and s-process. To test the origin of Eu in the Eu-stars, the authors make use of the barium to europium ratio ([Ba/Eu]). When the r-process is dominant, this ratio is low. Conversely a high [Ba/Eu] ratio indicates significant s-process contribution. As can be seen in Figure 2, the [Ba/Eu] ratio for the Eu-stars are all below -0.7 dex, indicating a pure r-process origin. In contrast, the comparison stars in Fornax lie at high values indicating a combination of r-process and s-process neutron capture.

With the knowledge that the Eu-stars were enriched by the r-process, the authors wanted to know what kind of event led to the r-process enhancement. To do this, they computed the Eu mass needed to explain the Eu-stars, finding a mass of M. They also find that one r-process event is sufficient to explain the existence of three Eu-stars without a substantially larger population of r-process enhanced stars in Fornax. Figure 3 shows the expected Eu yields from neutron star mergers and supernovae. However, given the uncertainties involved in the theoretical modeling of these events, the authors cannot definitively state whether neutron star mergers or supernovae are responsible for the Eu-stars.

Today’s paper has taken a deep look at the dwarf galaxy Fornax, which may represent one of the environments where stars with large amounts of heavy elements are made. They find three so-called Eu-stars and confirm an r-process origin, but are unable to pinpoint the physical event creating the excess neutron capture material. Absent more observations of neutron star mergers like GW170817, detailed studies of stars represent our best way of understanding neutron capture processes. While this paper represents a large step towards understanding the most extreme stars and heavy element creation, as with many things in astronomy, we must continue to find more objects to study!

Edited By: Ishan Mishra

Featured Image Credit: ESO

• About the Author

About Jason Hinkle

I am a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, Institute for Astronomy. My current research is on multi-wavelength photometric and spectroscopic follow-up of tidal disruption events. My research interests also include a number of topics related to AGN, including outflows, X-ray spectroscopy, and multi-wavelength variability. In addition to my love for astronomy, I enjoy hiking, sports, and musicals.

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