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In unveiling the nature of the first stars, the main astronomical clue is the elemental compositions of the second generation of stars, observed as extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars, in the Milky Way. However, no observational constraint was available on their multiplicity, which is crucial for understanding early phases of galaxy formation. We develop a new data-driven method to classify observed EMP stars into mono- or multi-enriched stars with support vector machines. We also use our own nucleosynthesis yields of core-collapse supernovae with mixing fallback that can explain many of the observed EMP stars. Our method predicts, for the first time, that 31.8% ± 2.3% of 462 analyzed EMP stars are classified as mono-enriched. This means that the majority of EMP stars are likely multi-enriched, suggesting that the first stars were born in small clusters. Lower-metallicity stars are more likely to be enriched by a single supernova, most of which have high carbon enhancement. We also find that Fe, Mg. Ca, and C are the most informative elements for this classification. In addition, oxygen is very informative despite its low observability. Our data-driven method sheds a new light on solving the mystery of the first stars from the complex data set of Galactic archeology surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While modeling the galactic chemical evolution (GCE) of stable elements provides insights to the formation history of the Galaxy and the relative contributions of nucleosynthesis sites, modeling the evolution of short-lived radioisotopes (SLRs) can provide supplementary timing information on recent nucleosynthesis. To study the evolution of SLRs, we need to understand their spatial distribution. Using a three-dimensional GCE model, we investigated the evolution of four SLRs: 53Mn, 60Fe, 182Hf, and 244Pu with the aim of explaining detections of recent (within the last ≈1–20 Myr) deposition of live 53Mn, 60Fe, and 244Pu of extrasolar origin into deep-sea reservoirs. We find that core-collapse supernovae are the dominant propagation mechanism of SLRs in the Galaxy. This results in the simultaneous arrival of these four SLRs on Earth, although they could have been produced in different astrophysical sites, which can explain why live extrasolar 53Mn, 60Fe, and 244Pu are found within the same, or similar, layers of deep-sea sediments. We predict that 182Hf should also be found in such sediments at similar depths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the third and final data release of the K2 Galactic Archaeology Program (K2 GAP) for Campaigns C1–C8 and C10–C18. We provide asteroseismic radius and mass coefficients, κR and κM, for ∼19,000 red giant stars, which translate directly to radius and mass given a temperature. As such, K2 GAP DR3 represents the largest asteroseismic sample in the literature to date. K2 GAP DR3 stellar parameters are calibrated to be on an absolute parallactic scale based on Gaia DR2, with red giant branch and red clump evolutionary state classifications provided via a machine-learning approach. Combining these stellar parameters with GALAH DR3 spectroscopy, we determine asteroseismic ages with precisions of ∼20%–30% and compare age-abundance relations to Galactic chemical evolution models among both low- and high-α populations for α, light, iron-peak, and neutron-capture elements. We confirm recent indications in the literature of both increased Ba production at late Galactic times as well as significant contributions to r-process enrichment from prompt sources associated with, e.g., core-collapse supernovae. With an eye toward other Galactic archeology applications, we characterize K2 GAP DR3 uncertainties and completeness using injection tests, suggesting that K2 GAP DR3 is largely unbiased in mass/age, with uncertainties of 2.9% (stat.) ± 0.1% (syst.) and 6.7% (stat.) ± 0.3% (syst.) in κR and κM for red giant branch stars and 4.7% (stat.) ± 0.3% (syst.) and 11% (stat.) ± 0.9% (syst.) for red clump stars. We also identify percent-level asteroseismic systematics, which are likely related to the time baseline of the underlying data, and which therefore should be considered in TESS asteroseismic analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conduct a rigorous examination of the nearby red supergiant Betelgeuse by drawing on the synthesis of new observational data and three different modeling techniques. Our observational results include the release of new, processed photometric measurements collected with the space-based Solar Mass Ejection Imager instrument prior to Betelgeuse's recent, unprecedented dimming event. We detect the first radial overtone in the photometric data and report a period of 185 ± 13.5 days. Our theoretical predictions include self-consistent results from multi-timescale evolutionary, oscillatory, and hydrodynamic simulations conducted with the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics software suite. Significant outcomes of our modeling efforts include a precise prediction for the star's radius:. In concert with additional constraints, this allows us to derive a new, independent distance estimate of pc and a parallax of mas, in good agreement with Hipparcos but less so with recent radio measurements. Seismic results from both perturbed hydrostatic and evolving hydrodynamic simulations constrain the period and driving mechanisms of Betelgeuse's dominant periodicities in new ways. Our analyses converge to the conclusion that Betelgeuse's ≈400 day period is the result of pulsation in the fundamental mode, driven by the κ-mechanism. Grid-based hydrodynamic modeling reveals that the behavior of the oscillating envelope is mass-dependent, and likewise suggests that the nonlinear pulsation excitation time could serve as a mass constraint. Our results place α Orionis definitively in the early core helium-burning phase of the red supergiant branch. We report a present-day mass of 16.5–19 M⊙—slightly lower than typical literature values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reach a deeper understanding of the origin of elements in the periodic table, we construct Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) models for all stable elements from C (A = 12) to U (A = 238) from first principles, i.e., using theoretical nucleosynthesis yields and event rates of all chemical enrichment sources. This enables us to predict the origin of elements as a function of time and environment. In the solar neighborhood, we find that stars with initial masses of M > 30M⊙ can become failed supernovae if there is a significant contribution from hypernovae (HNe) at M ∼ 20–50M⊙. The contribution to GCE from super-asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars (with M ∼ 8–10M⊙ at solar metallicity) is negligible, unless hybrid white dwarfs from low-mass super-AGB stars explode as so-called Type Iax supernovae, or high-mass super-AGB stars explode as electron-capture supernovae (ECSNe). Among neutron-capture elements, the observed abundances of the second (Ba) and third (Pb) peak elements are well reproduced with our updated yields of the slow neutron-capture process (s-process) from AGB stars. The first peak elements (Sr, Y, Zr) are sufficiently produced by ECSNe together with AGB stars. Neutron star mergers can produce rapid neutron-capture process (r-process) elements up to Th and U, but the timescales are too long to explain observations at low metallicities. The observed evolutionary trends, such as for Eu, can well be explained if ∼3% of 25–50M⊙ HNe are magneto-rotational supernovae producing r-process elements. Along with the solar neighborhood, we also predict the evolutionary trends in the halo, bulge, and thick disk for future comparison with Galactic archeology surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our quest to identify the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), we first update the nucleosynthesis yields for both near-Chandrasekhar- (Ch) and sub-Ch-mass white dwarfs (WDs) for a wide range of metallicities with our 2D hydrodynamical code and the latest nuclear reaction rates. We then include the yields in our galactic chemical evolution code to predict the evolution of elemental abundances in the solar neighborhood and dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies Fornax, Sculptor, Sextans, and Carina. In the observations of the solar neighborhood stars, Mn shows an opposite trend to α elements, showing an increase toward higher metallicities, which is very well reproduced by the deflagration–detonation transition of Ch-mass WDs but never by double detonations of sub-Ch-mass WDs alone. The problem of Ch-mass SNe Ia was the Ni overproduction at high metallicities. However, we found that Ni yields of Ch-mass SNe Ia are much lower with the solar-scaled initial composition than in previous works, which keeps the predicted Ni abundance within the observational scatter. From the evolutionary trends of elemental abundances in the solar neighborhood, we conclude that the contribution of sub-Ch-mass SNe Ia to chemical enrichment is up to 25%. In dSph galaxies, however, larger enrichment from sub-Ch-mass SNe Ia than in the solar neighborhood may be required, which causes a decrease in [(Mg, Cr, Mn, Ni)/Fe] at lower metallicities. The observed high [Mn/Fe] ratios in Sculptor and Carina may also require additional enrichment from pure deflagrations, possibly as SNe Iax. Future observations of dSph stars will provide more stringent constraints on the progenitor systems and explosion mechanism of SNe Ia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]