Logo image
Back
The Origin of Elements Across Cosmic Time: Astro2020 Science White Paper
Preprint   Open access

The Origin of Elements Across Cosmic Time: Astro2020 Science White Paper

Jennifer A Johnson, Gail Zasowski, David Weinberg, Yuan-Sen Ting, Jennifer Sobeck, Verne Smith, Victor Silva Aguirre, David Nataf, Sara Lucatello, Juna Kollmeier, …
ArXiv.org
Cornell University
07/09/2019
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1907.04388
url
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1907.04388View
Preprint (Author's original)This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

The problem of the origin of the elements is a fundamental one in astronomy and one that has many open questions. Prominent examples include (1) the nature of Type Ia supernovae and the timescale of their contributions; (2) the observational identification of elements such as titanium and potassium with the α-elements in conflict with core-collapse supernova predictions; (3) the number and relative importance of r-process sites; (4) the origin of carbon and nitrogen and the influence of mixing and mass loss in winds; and (5) the origin of the intermediate elements, such as Cu, Ge, As, and Se, that bridge the region between charged-particle and neutron-capture reactions. The next decade will bring to maturity many of the new tools that have recently made their mark, such as large-scale chemical cartography of the Milky Way and its satellites, the addition of astrometric and asteroseismic information, the detection and characterization of gravitational wave events, 3-D simulations of convection and model atmospheres, and improved laboratory measurements for transition probabilities and nuclear masses. All of these areas are key for continued improvement, and such improvement will benefit many areas of astrophysics.
Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Details

Metrics

3 Record Views
Logo image