Supernova Nucleosynthesis and Galactic Evolution

Abstract

The understanding of the abundance evolution in the interstellar medium, and especially the enrichment of heavy elements, as a function of space and time reflects the history of star formation and the lifetimes of the diverse contributing stellar objects. Therefore, the understanding of the endpoints of stellar evolution is essential. These are mainly planetary nebulae and type II/Ib/Ic supernovae as evolutionary endpoints of single stars, but also events in binary systems can contribute, like e.g. supernovae of type Ia, novae and possibly X-ray bursts and neutron star or neutron star - black hole mergers. Despite many efforts, a full and self-consistent understanding of supernovae (the main contributors to nucleosynthesis in galaxies) is not existing, yet. However, observed spectra, light curves, radioactivities/decay gamma-rays and galactic evolution witness the composition of their ejecta and constrain model uncertainties. We focus on (i) neutrino-induced explosions for type II supernovae and the innermost ejected layers, (ii) electron captures in type Ia supernovae and neutron-rich Fe-group nuclei and finally (iii) galactic chemical evolution and possible r-process sites.