The r-Process in Supersonic Neutrino-Driven Winds: The Roll of Wind Termination Shock

TL;DR

This study examines how the termination shock in supersonic neutrino-driven winds from supernovae influences the r-process nucleosynthesis, highlighting the importance of shock radius and temperature evolution for element formation.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-analytic model to analyze the effects of wind termination shocks on r-process nucleosynthesis, emphasizing the impact of temperature slowdown over entropy jumps.

Findings

Temperature slowdown by the termination shock influences r-process abundance patterns.

Small shock radii (~500 km) are crucial for reproducing solar r-process abundances.

Entropy jumps at large shock radii (~10,000 km) have negligible effects on the r-process.

Abstract

Recent hydrodynamic studies of core-collapse supernovae imply that the neutrino-heated ejecta from a nascent neutron star develops to supersonic outflows. These supersonic winds are influenced by the reverse shock from the preceding supernova ejecta, forming the wind termination shock. We investigate the effects of the termination shock in neutrino-driven winds and its roll on the r-process. Supersonic outflows are calculated with a semi-analytic neutrino-driven wind model. Subsequent termination-shocked, subsonic outflows are obtained by applying the Rankine-Hugoniot relations. We find a couple of effects that can be relevant for the r-process. First is the sudden slowdown of the temperature decrease by the wind termination. Second is the entropy jump by termination-shock heating, up to several 100NAk. Nucleosynthesis calculations in the obtained winds are performed to examine these effects on the r-process. We find that 1) the slowdown of the temperature decrease plays a decisive roll to determine the r-process abundance curves. This is due to the strong dependences of the nucleosynthetic path on the temperature during the r-process freezeout phase. Our results suggest that only the termination-shocked winds with relatively small shock radii (~500km) are relevant for the bulk of the solar r-process abundances (A~100-180). The heaviest part in the solar r-process curve (A~180-200), however, can be reproduced both in shocked and unshocked winds. These results may help to constrain the mass range of supernova progenitors relevant for the r-process. We find, on the other hand, 2) negligible roles of the entropy jump on the r-process. This is a consequence that the sizable entropy increase takes place only at a large shock radius (~10,000km) where the r-process has already ceased.