Nucleosynthesis in Magnetically Driven Jets from Collapsars

Understand

We have made detailed calculations of the composition of magnetically driven jets ejected from collapsars, or rapidly rotating massive stars, based on long-term magnetohydrodynamic simulations of their core collapse with various distributions of magnetic field and angular momentum before collapse.

• We follow the evolution of the abundances of about 4000 nuclides from the collapse phase to the ejection phase and through the jet generation phase using a large nuclear reaction network.
• We find that the r-process successfully operates only in energetic jets (> 1e51 ergs), such that U and Th are synthesized abundantly, even when the collapsar has a relatively weak magnetic field (1e10 G) and a moderately rotating core before the collapse.
• The abundance patterns inside the jets are similar to those of the r-elements in the solar system.