Abstract

A population number synthesis code follows in detail the evolution of a population of single stars and of close binaries. We use our code to simulate the population of neutron star–neutron star and black hole–neutron star binaries. We then combine our population number synthesis code with a galactic chemical evolutionary model in order to follow the time evolution of the formation and merger rate of these double compact star binaries and the resulting chemical enrichment of r-process elements, over the whole Galactic lifetime. It can be concluded that the neutron star/black hole merger process is able to reproduce the observed r-process enrichment of the Galaxy. However, we show that the latter conclusion depends critically on the physics of case BB Roche lobe overflow in binaries with a neutron star component and a hydrogen deficient core helium/helium shell burning star with a mass between 2.6 M ⊙ and 6 M ⊙.

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