Early galactic heavy element production - a phenomenological approach
Abstract
The high abundances of heavy elements in early, extremely metal-poor stars is still an unsolved issue in Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE). Standard approaches, such as mergers of neutron stars, have several difficulties, and several non-merger production channels are under discussion. Here, we suggest that pre-enriched inflow might explain the heavy elements seen in low metallicity stars in the Galaxy. To characterize the conditions of the origin of such a pre-enriched infall, we apply a heavy-element freeze-out approach. We characterize the initial distribution by Lagrange parameters which are nonequilibrium generalizations of temperature and chemical potentials. We then speculate about the origin of such a pre-enriched infall: The required nonequilibrium conditions might be found in cosmological fluctuations in the early Universe, and might be connected to the formation of primordial black holes.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{wehmeyer2026early,
title = {{Early galactic heavy element production - a phenomenological approach}},
author = {B. Wehmeyer and D. Blaschke and F. K. Röpke and G. Röpke},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.08084},
eprint = {2610.08084},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08084},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Early galactic heavy element production - a phenomenological approach
AU - B. Wehmeyer
AU - D. Blaschke
AU - F. K. Röpke
AU - G. Röpke
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.08084
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08084
AB - The high abundances of heavy elements in early, extremely metal-poor stars is still an unsolved issue in Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE). Standard approaches, such as mergers of neutron stars, have several difficulties, and several non-merger production channels are under discussion. Here, we suggest that pre-enriched inflow might explain the heavy elements seen in low metallicity stars in the Galaxy. To characterize the conditions of the origin of such a pre-enriched infall, we apply a heavy-element freeze-out approach. We characterize the initial distribution by Lagrange parameters which are nonequilibrium generalizations of temperature and chemical potentials. We then speculate about the origin of such a pre-enriched infall: The required nonequilibrium conditions might be found in cosmological fluctuations in the early Universe, and might be connected to the formation of primordial black holes.
ER -