Speaker
Benjamin Wehmeyer
(Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8202, USA)
Description
The origin of the heaviest elements is still a matter of debate. For the
rapid neutron capture process (“r-process”), multiple sites have been
proposed, e.g., neutron star mergers and (sub-classes) of rare types of supernovae.
The r-process elements have been measured in a large fraction of metal-poor stars.
Galactic archaeology studies show that the r-process
abundances among these stars vary by over 2 orders of magnitude. On the other hand,
abundances in stars with solar-like metallicity do not differ greatly.
This leads to two major questions:
1. what is the reason of such a huge abundance scatter in the early galaxy?
2. While the large scatter at low metallicities might point to a rare
production site, why is there barely any scatter at solar metallicities?
We use the high resolution (≥ 20parsec/cell)
inhomogeneous chemical evolution tool “ICE” to study the role of
the contributing source(s) of r-process elements.
In this talk, I will discuss chemical evolution scenarios that provide an explanation for the observed
abundance features of r-process elements in our Galaxy.
Primary author
Benjamin Wehmeyer
(Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8202, USA)
Co-authors
Prof.
Carla Frohlich
(NC State University)
Prof.
Friedrich-Karl Thielemann
(Universitaet Basel)
Dr
marco Pignatari
(University of Hull)