THE ORIGINS OF LIGHT AND HEAVY R -PROCESS ELEMENTS IDENTIFIED BY CHEMICAL TAGGING OF METAL-POOR STARS

Abstract

Growing interests in neutron star (NS) mergers as the origin of r-process elements have sprouted since the discovery of evidence for the ejection of these elements from a short-duration gamma-ray burst. The hypothesis of a NS merger origin is reinforced by a theoretical update of nucleosynthesis in NS mergers successful in yielding r-process nuclides with A>130. On the other hand, whether the origin of light r-process elements are associated with nucleosynthesis in NS merger events remains unclear. We find a signature of nucleosynthesis in NS mergers from peculiar chemical abundances of stars belonging to the Galactic globular cluster M15. This finding combined with the recent nucleosynthesis results implies a potential diversity of nucleosynthesis in NS mergers. Based on these considerations, we are successful in the interpretation of an observed correlation between [light r-process/Eu] and [Eu/Fe] among Galactic halo stars and accordingly narrow down the role of supernova nucleosynthesis in the r-process production site. We conclude that the tight correlation by a large fraction of halo stars is attributable to the fact that core-collapse supernovae produce light r-process elements while heavy r-process elements such as Eu and Ba are produced by NS mergers. On the other hand, stars in the outlier, composed of r-enhanced stars ([Eu/Fe]>+1) such as CS22892-052, were exclusively enriched by matter ejected by a subclass of NS mergers that is inclined to be massive and consist of both light and heavy r-process nuclides.