The impact of turbulent mixing on the galactic r-process enrichment by binary neutron star mergers across the entire metallicity range

Irina Dvorkin, Frédéric Daigne, Stéphane Goriely, Elisabeth Vangioni, Joseph Silk

Published 2020-10-01Version 1

We study the enrichment of the interstellar medium with rapid neutron capture (r-process) elements produced in binary neutron star (BNS) mergers using a semi-analytic model of the evolution of a Milky-Way-like galaxy in which we implemented merger rates and time delay distributions of BNS mergers consistent with the latest population synthesis models. In order to study the dispersion of the relative abundances of r-process elements and iron, we applied a turbulent mixing scheme, where the freshly synthesized elements are gradually dispersed in the interstellar medium. We show that within our model the abundances observed in Milky-Way stars, in particular the scatter at low metallicities, can be entirely explained by BNS mergers. Our results suggest that binary neutron star mergers could be the dominant source of r-process elements in low-metallicity environments, and can potentially also be the main source of r-process elements in disk stars at solar metallicity.