Spectacular nucleosynthesis from early massive stars

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2401.02484
• Publication Date: 2024-01-01
• Authors: Alexander P. Ji; Sanjana Curtis; Nicholas Storm; Vedant Chandra; Kevin C. Schlaufman; Keivan G. Stassun; Alexander Heger; M. Pignatari; Adrian M. Price-W...; M. Bergemann; Guy S. Stringfellow; Carla Fröhlich; Henrique Reggiani; Erika M. Holmbeck; Jamie Tayar; Shivani Shah; Emily J. Griffith; Chervin F. P. Lap...; Andrew R. Casey; Keith Hawkins; Danny Horta; W. Cerny; Pierre Thibodeaux; S. A. Usman; João A. S. Amarante; Rachael L. Beaton; Phillip A. Cargile; C. Chiappini; Charlie Conroy; Jennifer A. Johnson; Juna A. Kollmeier; Haining Li; Sarah Loebman; G. Meynet; Dmitry Bizyaev; Joel R. Brownstein; Pramod Gupta; Sean Morrison; Kaike Pan; Solange Ramírez; Hans-Walter Rix; José Sánchez-Gallego
• Keywords: Stellar nucleosynthesis; Big Bang nucleosynthesis; Low Mass

Stars formed with initial mass over 50 Msun are very rare today, but they thought to be more common in the early universe. The fates of those early, metal-poor, massive stars highly uncertain. Most expected directly collapse black holes, while some may explode as a result rotationally powered engines or pair-creation instability. We present chemical abundances J0931+0038, nearby low-mass star identified followup SDSS-V Milky Way Mapper, which preserves signature unusual nucleosynthesis from J0931+0038 has relatively high metallicity ([Fe/H] = -1.76 +/- 0.13) an extreme odd-even abundance pattern, lowest known ratios [N/Fe], [Na/Fe], [K/Fe], [Sc/Fe], and [Ba/Fe]. implication is that majority its metals originated single extremely metal-poor nucleosynthetic source. An extensive search through predictions finds clear preference for progenitors > Msun, making one first observational constraints on this range. However full pattern not matched by any models literature. thus presents challenge next generation motivates study high-mass progenitor impacted convection, rotation, jets, and/or binary companions. Though rare, examples should found upcoming large spectroscopic surveys.