The Nucleosynthetic Imprint of 15-40 Solar Mass Primordial Supernovae on Metal-Poor Stars

TL;DR

This study investigates how rotation in primordial supernovae influences nucleosynthesis and the resulting chemical signatures in extremely metal-poor stars, highlighting the role of low-mass supernovae in early universe metal enrichment.

Contribution

It introduces new 3D hydrodynamic simulations of rotating primordial supernovae and compares their yields to observed metal-poor star abundances, emphasizing the impact of rotation and progenitor mass.

Findings

Rotation causes primary nitrogen production in Z=0 models.

Low-energy, 15 solar mass supernovae match observed metal-poor star patterns.

Low-mass supernovae significantly contributed to early universe metal enrichment.

Abstract

The inclusion of rotationally-induced mixing in stellar evolution can alter the structure and composition of presupernova stars. We survey the effects of progenitor rotation on nucleosynthetic yields in Population III and II supernovae using the new adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) code CASTRO. We examine spherical explosions in 15, 25 and 40 solar mass stars at Z = 0 and 10^-4 solar metallicity with three explosion energies and two rotation rates. Rotation in the Z = 0 models resulted in primary nitrogen production and a stronger hydrogen burning shell which led all models to die as red supergiants. On the other hand, the Z=10^-4 solar metallicity models that included rotation ended their lives as compact blue stars. Because of their extended structure, the hydrodynamics favors more mixing and less fallback in the metal free stars than the Z = 10^-4 models. As expected, higher energy explosions produce more enrichment and less fallback than do lower energy explosions, and less massive stars produce more enrichment and leave behind smaller remnants than do more massive stars. We compare our nucleosynthetic yields to the chemical abundances in the three most iron-poor stars yet found and reproduce the abundance pattern of one, HE 0557-4840, with a zero metallicity 15 solar mass, 2.4 x 10^51 erg supernova. A Salpeter IMF averaged integration of our yields for Z=0 models with explosion energies of 2.4x10^51 ergs or less is in good agreement with the abundances observed in larger samples of extremely metal-poor stars, provided 15 solar mass stars are included. Since the abundance patterns of extremely metal-poor stars likely arise from a representative sample of progenitors, our yields suggest that low-mass supernovae contributed the bulk of the metals to the early universe.