The birth environment of the solar system constrained by the relative abundances of the solar radionuclides

TL;DR

This study analyzes solar radionuclide abundances to infer the Sun's birth environment, suggesting it formed in a typical massive star-forming region influenced by Wolf-Rayet winds, with radionuclide data supporting a standard galactic environment.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of radionuclide abundances to constrain the Sun's birth environment, highlighting the role of Wolf-Rayet winds and challenging the necessity of neutron star mergers as sole sources.

Findings

The Sun likely formed in a typical massive star-forming region.

Radionuclide abundances are consistent with enrichment by Wolf-Rayet winds.

The timescale for radionuclide production aligns with a 200 Myr residence time in the ISM.

Abstract

The relative abundances of the radionuclides in the solar system at the time of its birth are crucial arbiters for competing hypotheses regarding the birth environment of the Sun. The presence of short-lived radionuclides, as evidenced by their decay products in meteorites, has been used to suggest that particular, sometimes exotic, stellar sources were proximal to the Sun's birth environment. The recent confirmation of neutron star - neutron star (NS-NS) mergers and associated kilonovae as potentially dominant sources of r-process nuclides can be tested in the case of the solar birth environment using the relative abundances of the longer-lived nuclides. Critical analysis of the 15 radionuclides and their stable partners for which abundances and production ratios are well known suggests that the Sun formed in a typical massive star-forming region (SFR). The apparent overabundances of short-lived radionuclides (e.g.\, $^{26} {\rm Al}$, $^{41}{\rm Ca}$, $^{36}{\rm Cl}$) in the early solar system appears to be an artifact of a heretofore under-appreciation for the important influences of enrichment by Wolf-Rayet winds in SFRs. The long-lived nuclides (e.g.\, $^{238}{\rm U}$, $^{244}{\rm Pu}$, $^{247}{\rm Cr}$, $^{129}{\rm I}$) are consistent with an average time interval between production events of $10^8$ years, seemingly too short to be the products of NS-NS mergers alone. The relative abundances of all of these nuclides can be explained by their mean decay lifetimes and an average residence time in the ISM of $\sim200$ Myr. This residence time evidenced by the radionuclides is consistent with the average lifetime of dust in the ISM and the timescale for converting molecular cloud mass to stars.