Speaker
Tobias Fischer
(University of Wroclaw)
Description
Canonical core-collapse supernova explosions, driven by the neutrino-heating mechanism, are presently ruled out as nucleosynthesis site for the production of heavy elements. Detailed numerical studies, with accurate neutrino transport and a sophisticated treatment of weak processes included, have shown that the ejected material does not yield sufficient neutron excess [1] for the production of elements with atomic numbers greater than 32 < Z < 50 [2], known as light neutron-capture elements. Here, we will review this caveat in the light of observations of metal-poor star (metalicity as stellar age tracer), dwarf galaxies and deep sea sediments. Based on new insights, we revisit the possibility that a few rare supernova explosion events can account for a strong r-process, i.e. the production of elements up to mass numbers of A ≃ 195 (third r-process peak). Therefore, it has been shown recently that the appearance of exotic phases of hot and dense matter, associated with a 1st-order phase transition from ordinary nuclear matter to the quark-gluon plasma at the supernova interior, triggers the onset of energetic supernova explosions of massive stars with zero-age main sequence masses of 40–50 M⊙ [3]. Moreover, these events yield a strong r process, which we will present and discuss here for the first time.
Keywords: core-collapse supernovae - equation of state - nucleosynthesis
References
[1] G. Mart inez-Pinedo, T. Fischer, A. Lohs, and L. Huther, “Charged-Current Weak Interac- tion Processes in Hot and Dense Matter and its Impact on the Spectra of Neutrinos Emitted from Protoneutron Star Cooling,” Physical Review Letters, 109, 251104, 2012.
[2] G. Mart ́ınez-Pinedo, T. Fischer, and L. Huther, “Supernova neutrinos and nucleosynthesis,” Journal of Physics G Nuclear Physics, 41, 044008, 2014.
[3] T. Fischer, N.-U. F. Bastian, M.-R. Wu, S. Typel, T. Kla ̈hn, and D. B. Blaschke, “High- density phase transition paves the way for supernova explosions of massive blue-supergiant stars,” ArXiv e-prints, astro-ph.HE/1712.08788.
Primary author
Tobias Fischer
(University of Wroclaw)
Co-authors
David Bernhard Blaschke
(University of Wroclaw)
Gabriel Martinez-Pinedo
(University of Darmstadt)
Meng-Ru Wu
(Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei)
Niels-Uwe Friedrich Bastian
(University of Wroclaw)
