Two Sites of r-Process Production Assessed on the Basis of the Age-tagged Abundances of Solar Twins

TL;DR

This study uses age-tagged abundances of solar twins to investigate the origins of r-process elements, suggesting two distinct astrophysical sites for their production based on galactic chemical evolution.

Contribution

It provides evidence for two separate r-process production sites, challenging the idea that neutron star mergers are the sole source, by analyzing abundance patterns in solar twins.

Findings

Oldest solar twins likely originated in the Galactic bulge.

The [r-process/Fe] versus R_GC relation indicates multiple production sites.

Neutron star mergers alone cannot explain observed abundance patterns.

Abstract

Solar twins, i.e., stars that are nearly identical to the Sun, including their metallicities, in the solar vicinity show ages widely distributed from 0-10 Gyr. This fact matches the orbital history of solar twins in the new paradigm of galactic dynamics, in which stars radially move on the disk when they encounter transient spiral arms. This finding suggests that older twins were born closer to the Galactic center and traveled a longer distance to reach their present location, according to the hypothesis that chemical enrichment occurs more quickly and that solar metallicity is attained on a shorter timescale with a decreasing Galactocentric distance (R_GC). We show that abundance patterns covering a wide range of heavy elements for solar twins sharing similar ages are identical and that their variation among different age groups can be understood on the basis of the age-R_GC connection within the framework of Galactic chemical evolution. This study identifies the Galactic bulge as the birthplace of the oldest solar twins. Based on this scheme, we find that the relation between [r-process/Fe] and R_GC for the inner Galactic region is incompatible with the hypothesis of a sole site for r-process production, that is, neutron star mergers, whose delay time distribution could be approximated by the power-law form (proportional to t^n). Alternatively, this relation suggests the presence of two distinct sites for r-process production: short-lived massive stars, ending with specific core-collapse supernovae, and neutron star mergers that are heavily inclined to emerge with longer delay times, as represented by n=0-0.5.