Towards a paradigm change in the main heavy r-process nucleosynthesis sites

TL;DR

This paper compares three main r-process nucleosynthesis sites, highlighting the potential dominance of the CEJSN scenario in explaining observed elemental abundances, and suggests multiple sites contribute to heavy element formation.

Contribution

It introduces the CEJSN r-process scenario as a significant contributor and provides a method to incorporate it into population synthesis models.

Findings

CEJSN scenario explains diverse r-process observations

NS-NS merger and collapsar scenarios face challenges

Multiple r-process sites likely contribute to heavy element synthesis

Abstract

We study the basic properties of three possible r-process scenarios (sites) and compare them to recent observations and theoretical simulations. We find that the common envelope jets supernova (CEJSN) r-process scenario can account for the different observations of r-process nucleosynthesis, including the presence of r-process-rich low-metalicity stars in ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies. The neutron star (NS)-NS merger scenario and the collapsar scenario encounter some difficulties. Despite that, we conclude that it is very likely that more than one r-process scenario exists, with a significant contribution by the CEJSN r-process scenario. We give a prescription to include this scenario in population synthesis studies of the r-process.