Draft version November 2, 2020

Typeset using LATEX twocolumn style in AASTeX63

Collapsar R-Process Yields Can Reproduce [Eu/Fe] Abundance Scatter in Metal-Poor Stars

Kaley Brauer ,1, 2 Alexander P. Ji ,3, 2, 4 Maria R. Drout ,5, 3 and Anna Frebel 1, 2

1 Department of Physics and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
02139, USA
2 Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics – Center for Evolution of the Elements, USA
3 Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara St., Pasadena, CA 91101, USA
arXiv:2010.15837v1 [astro-ph.HE] 29 Oct 2020

4 Hubble Fellow
5 David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto

50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3H4 Canada

(Received xxx xx, 2020; Revised xxx xx, 2020; Accepted xxx xx, 2020)

Submitted to AJ

ABSTRACT
It is unclear if neutron star mergers can explain the observed r-process abundances of metal-poor
stars. Collapsars, defined here as rotating massive stars whose collapse results in a rapidly accreting
disk around a black hole that can launch jets, are a promising alternative. We find that we can
produce a self-consistent model in which a population of collapsars with stochastic europium yields
synthesizes all of the r-process material in metal-poor ([Fe/H] < −2.5) stars. Our model reproduces
the observed scatter and evolution of scatter of [Eu/Fe] abundances. We find that if collapsars are
the dominant r-process site for metal-poor stars, r-process synthesis may be linked to supernovae that
produce long γ-ray bursts. Our results also allow for the possibility that core-collapse supernovae
beyond those that launch γ-ray bursts also produce r-process material (e.g., potentially a subset of
Type Ic-BL supernovae). Furthermore, we identify collapsar jet properties (isotropic energy, engine
luminosity, or engine time) which may trace r-process yield and verify that the amount of r-process
yield produced per collapsar in our model (∼ 0.07M ) is consistent with other independent estimates.
In the future, achieving 0.05 dex precision on distribution scatter or a reliable selection function would
further constrain our probe of r-process production. Our model would also hold for another prompt
r-process site with a power-law yield, and work is needed to determine if, for example, fast-merging
neutron stars can also explain abundance scatter.

Keywords: Core-collapse supernovae – Stellar jets – R-process – Nucleosynthesis – Stellar abundances

1. INTRODUCTION an optical transient associated with the neutron star

Around half of the abundances of the heaviest iso- merger GW170817 (Abbott et al. 2017; Coulter et al.
topes in the periodic table, including gold and europium, 2017) provided strong evidence for r-process production
are produced through the rapid neutron-capture pro- in neutron star mergers (e.g., Drout et al. 2017; Pian
cess (r-process, Burbidge et al. 1957; Cameron 1957). et al. 2017). Neutron star mergers thus appear to be
Since the first discussion of the r-process in the 1950s, a source of r-process elements, but it is unclear if they
there has been debate over which astrophysical sites are the dominant source in the early universe. One con-
produce r-process material. Recently, the detection of cern stems from observations of r-process abundances in
metal-poor ([Fe/H] < −2.5) stars in the Galactic halo.
It is unclear whether the delay time to form and co-
Corresponding author: Kaley Brauer alesce a binary neutron star system is too long to pro-
[email protected] vide r-process material to near-pristine gas before the
formation of metal-poor stars (e.g., Argast et al. 2004;
2 Brauer et al.

Skúladóttir et al. 2019; Cescutti et al. 2015; Wehmeyer paper, we investigate collapsars as a source of the r-
et al. 2015; Haynes & Kobayashi 2019; Kobayashi et al. process in the early universe by investigating whether
2020). Possible solutions include processes like inhomo- they can self-consistently reproduce the scatter of eu-
geneous metal mixing or inefficient star formation mit- ropium (Eu, Z = 63) in the most metal-poor stars.
igating the delay time (e.g., Ishimaru et al. 2015; Shen Our model assumes the r-process material in metal-poor
et al. 2015; van de Voort et al. 2015; Ramirez-Ruiz et al. stars was formed exclusively in collapsars with stochastic
2015; Ji et al. 2016; Dvorkin et al. 2020) or common r-process yields. Previous stochastic models primarily
envelope producing a large number of rapidly merging assume the r-process is produced in fixed amounts, but
neutron star binaries (e.g., Beniamini et al. 2016; Sa- comes from multiple different sources and/or mixes into
farzadeh et al. 2019b; Zevin et al. 2019; Andrews et al. different environments (e.g., Tsujimoto & Shigeyama
2020), but concerns have not been eradicated. 2014; Cescutti et al. 2015; Wehmeyer et al. 2015; Shen
Natal kicks received from the supernova explosions et al. 2015). In contrast, our model assumes the r-
that give birth to neutron stars may have also made process source has an intrinsically stochastic produc-
it unlikely for small, early galaxies to retain neutron tion: each collapsar synthesizes a different amount of
star binaries (Bramante & Linden 2016; Beniamini et al. r-process material.
2016; Bonetti et al. 2019). For example, the highly In Section 2, we outline our stochastic collapsar en-
r-process-enriched metal-poor stars in the ultra-faint richment model in which we assume each collapsar con-
dwarf galaxy Reticulum II could potentially be ex- tributes an r-process yield that is independently drawn
plained by a neutron star merger (Ji et al. 2016), but from a power law distribution, inspired by models of
the natal kick would have to have been very small collapsar jet fits to γ-ray burst data. Our model is
(v < vesc ∼ 10 − 20 km s-1 ) and/or the merger time constrained using stellar abundance data described in
extremely short to avoid kicking the binary out of the Section 3, and the parameter constraints are described
tiny galaxy (Tarumi et al. 2020; Safarzadeh et al. 2019a; in Section 4. The implications of these results are dis-
Bramante & Linden 2016). This is in contrast to larger cussed in Section 5, where we put our results in context
estimates of 20 − 140 km s−1 based on the offset dis- with collapsar jet property distributions, different types
tribution of short-duration γ-ray bursts from their host of core-collapse supernovae, and different estimates for
galaxies (Fong & Berger 2013), and 5 − 5450 km s−1 the amounts of r-process material which may be pro-
from galactic double NS systems (Wong et al. 2010). duced by collapsars. Our conclusions are summarized
In light of these concerns — coupled with the infer- in Section 6.
ence that the ejecta from GW170817 was dominated
by an accretion disk wind, rather than dynamical tidal 2. COLLAPSAR R-PROCESS YIELD MODEL
tails (e.g. Siegel 2019) — Siegel et al. (2019) revived The purpose of our model is to determine the distribu-
the idea that collapsars (the supernova- and γ-ray-burst- tion of r-process abundances (as measured by [Eu/Fe])
triggering collapse of rapidly rotating massive stars) may in a fixed metallicity bin (as measured by [Fe/H]). A
be an important source of r-process material (see also, schematic of the model can be seen in Figure 1a.
e.g., MacFadyen & Woosley 1999; McLaughlin & Sur-
man 2005). In particular, the accretion disks formed in 2.1. Defining “Collapsar”
collapsars can have similar conditions to the r-process
The term “collapsar” typically refers to the collapse of
producing disk of GW170817. Siegel et al. (2019) found
a massive, rapidly-rotating star in which accretion onto
that for accretion rates & 10−3 M s−1 , these disks
a central black hole can produce a beamed jet, com-
produce neutron-rich outflows that synthesize heavy r-
monly evoked as the progenitors of long-duration γ-ray
process nuclei. They also found that collapsars can yield
bursts (LGRBs). In the model described below, we more
sufficient r-process material to explain over 80% of the
broadly use the term to encompass a population of core-
r-process content of the Universe. Although the electron
collapse supernovae that produce heavy r-process mate-
fraction in collapsar disk winds is still debated (Surman
rial with a power-law distribution of yields. This defini-
et al. 2006; Miller et al. 2019), this is currently one of
tion is motivated by the traditional collapsar picture in
the most promising ways for core-collapse supernovae
which rapid accretion onto a compact object launches
(CCSN) to make r-process elements (other than magne-
a collimated outflow wherein both the duration and lu-
torotationally driven CCSN, e.g., Nishimura et al. 2015,
minosities of LGRBs are well-described by power laws
but see Mösta et al. 2018).
(Petropoulou et al. 2017; Sobacchi et al. 2017). Con-
The scatter in the abundances of metal-poor stars is
necting jet properties to r-process production is inspired
a useful probe of different r-process origins. In this
by the possible connection between the accretion phase
 R-Process Collapsars 3

1.5


  1


[Eu/Fe]
 0.5

 

0
 
  
−0.5

−3 −2.5 −2
[Fe/H]

(a) Schematic of our model. Core-collapse supernovae explode (b) The r-process abundance scatter in the RPA data.
into the total gas, yielding iron (Fe), and some fraction of The data is shown as dots (Eu detections) and
these are collapsars which also yield stochastic amounts of triangles (Eu upper limits). The grey boxes show the
europium (Eu). This produces stars with different [Eu/Fe] estimated IQREu (the abundance scatter) in several
and [Fe/H] abundances. metallicity bins, which decreases with increasing
metallicity.

Figure 1. Schematic of our theoretical model and scatter plot of the stellar data our models attempts to reproduce. Our model
attempts to reproduce the observed Eu scatter at low metallicity by assuming all Eu is produced by collapsars, which are a
fraction of all core-collapse supernovae.

during which r-process material is produced (due to a yield that is independently and identically drawn from
sufficiently high accretion rate that neutronizes the disk) a power law distribution. This model has five free pa-
and the phase during which the collapsar jet is launched. rameters:
In particular, Siegel et al. (2019) finds that the produc-
1. NSN : the number of core-collapse supernovae en-
tion of heavy r-process material requires Ṁ & 10−3 M
riching the gas.
s−1 , closely matched to the accretion rates required for
jet production (MacFadyen & Woosley 1999). We note, 2. hNr i: the average number of collapsars (i.e. super-
however, that the results described below would also novae that produce non-zero amounts of r-process
hold for other prompt r-process sites (e.g., occurring material).
roughly concurrently with CCSN; this could potentially
include fast-merging neutron stars) that lead to a power 3. Mr,min : the minimum mass of r-process material
law distribution of heavy r-process material. that can be produced by a collapsar.
In addition, our model does not require that a jet 4. α: the power law exponent for our power law dis-
successfully breaks out of the progenitor star. While tribution of r-process yield produced per collapsar.
the most extreme r-process producing events require
large fallback accretion disks and are likely associated 5. yFe,eff : the effective iron yield per supernovae per
with LGRBs, our model also includes events that eject unit gas mass. yFe,eff = yFe fretained /Mgas , where
smaller amounts of r-process material. Such systems yFe is the iron yield per supernova, fretained is the
may produce weaker outflows/jets and be observed as fraction of iron retained in the galaxy and not car-
low-luminosity GRBs (ll-GRBs; e.g., Bromberg et al. ried out of the system by gas outflows, and Mgas
2011; Petropoulou et al. 2017), relativistic supernovae is the total gas mass in the system.
(e.g., Soderberg et al. 2010; Margutti et al. 2014), or These parameters combine to yield the mean gas
broad-lined Type Ic supernovae (Type Ic-BL; e.g., Mil- metallicity, the the fraction of supernovae that are col-
isavljevic et al. 2015; Modjaz et al. 2016). lapsars (fr ), and the average yield per collapsar (hMr i),
as described below.
2.2. Basic Physical Set-up and Model Parameters
We model the abundance distribution as arising from a 2.3. Gas Enrichment
single burst of core-collapse supernova enrichment, some We determine the distribution of europium abun-
fraction of which are collapsars that produce non-zero dances produced by this model at a given metallic-
r-process yields. Each collapsar produces an r-process ity. The mean metallicity of our stars is found from
4 Brauer et al.

MFe /MH = NSN yFe,eff . The mass of iron and hy- combining estimates for each component parameter (re-
drogen is converted to [Fe/H] using a mean molecu- call yFe,eff = yFe fretained /Mgas ) from the literature.
lar weight of µFe = 56 for Fe, log  (Fe) = 7.50, and The fraction of retained metals is set to fretained =
log  (H) = 12.00 (Asplund et al. 2009), where we use 10−2±0.5 , assuming that metal-poor stars form early in
the stellar spectroscopist notation [X/Y] ≡ log NX /NY − small galaxies. Observationally, individual faint galax-
log (NX /NY ) = log( M X µY
MY µX ) − (log  (X) − log  (Y)). ies have fretained in this range: the Milky Way’s moder-
In order to determine the distribution of europium ately faint dSphs (e.g., Ursa Minor) have kept less than
values, we enrich this gas with Nr collapsars, which 1% of their metals (Kirby et al. 2011); while the faint
we draw stochastically from a Poisson distribution with but still star-forming galaxy Leo P has kept about 5%
mean hNr i = fr NSN . Each collapsar contributes an r- of its metals (McQuinn et al. 2015). Theoretically, re-
process yield Mr that is independently drawn from a taining about 1% of metals in small galaxies reproduces
power law distribution. the slope and normalization of the mass-metallicity re-
 −α lation (e.g., Dekel & Woo 2003; Robertson et al. 2005).
Mr The retention fraction is also borne out in hydrodynamic
p(Mr ) ∝ Mr ≥ Mr,min (1)
Mr,min galaxy simulations (e.g., Emerick et al. 2018).
The r-process yield for a single explosion, Mr , can be Mgas is set by models of how supernovae dilute metals
converted to MEu by using the solar r-process mass frac- into a mixing mass of gas. For small, early galaxies
tion of europium compared to all nuclei with mass num- that form metal-poor stars, the mixing mass is Mgas ∼
ber A > 70. The mass fraction, XEu , is approximately 106 M (Ji et al. 2015). The strict lower limit on this
10−3 (1.75 × 10−3 , Arnould et al. 2007; 9.77 × 10−4 , mass is the mass contained in a single final supernovae
Sneden et al. 2008). When converting total europium remnant, a minimum of ∼ 104.5 M (e.g., Magg et al.
mass to [Eu/Fe], we use a mean molecular weight of 2020), with a range of average mixing masses for metal-
µFe = 152 for Eu and log  (Eu) = 0.52. We also as- poor stars of 105 to 108 M of gas. For systems with
sume that europium and iron have the same retention higher Mgas , more metals are retained, resulting in a
fraction, fretained , meaning the same fraction of both is higher retention fraction fretained (and vice versa).
lost from the galaxy. To estimate an average iron yield from CCSN, we cal-
Note that if α ≤ 2, then the average yield produced culate a weighted average between observations of H-rich
per collapsar diverges and our model would also require CCSN and H-poor CCSN. A detailed discussion can be
an upper cutoff to the amount of r-process material that found in Appendix A, but find that the average yield is
can be produced by a single collapsar, Mr,max . However, yFe ≈ 0.1M , with the uncertainty in fretained and Mgas
when we compare to observed data in Section 4, it will far outweighing that of yFe .
turn out our results imply α > 2, in which case the Altogether, yFe,eff has a wide range of possible values
average yield per collapsar is: (10−10 − 10−7 ), but our fiducial choice is yFe,eff = 10−9 .
This choice is validated by an independent estimation
α−1 of the frequency of r-process events in ultra-faint dwarf
hMr i = Mr,min (2)
α−2 galaxies in Section 4.2. We note, however, that there is
While in principle yFe is also stochastic, for simplic- tension between the values expected for yFe,eff in very
ity we hold it constant. This is fine as long as fr is low mass galaxies based on the theoretical breakdown
small, since variations in the Fe yield will average out. described in this section and comparisons to several ex-
Operationally, we create a model [Eu/Fe] distribution ternal constraints. For example, the number of super-
by considering several thousand instances of supernovae novae predicted in an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy using the
enrichment. In each instance, we draw an Nr value and Salpeter initial mass function suggests an effective iron
then draw Mr for each of the Nr collapsars. The to- yield closer to ∼ 10−7.5 , and a simulation of extremely
tal europium and iron masses retained in the galaxy in metal-poor ([Fe/H] = −3.42) stars forming after a sin-
each instance are transformed into a [Eu/Fe] measure- gle supernova gives an estimated effective iron yield as
ment. We also add a 0.1 dex Gaussian uncertainty to high as ∼ 10−6.5 (Chiaki & Wise 2019). This is not
mimic observational errors. fully unexpected as yFe,eff differs in different galaxies
2.4. Constraining Model Parameters: Literature and the lowest mass galaxies will have the highest ef-
Estimates for Effective Iron Yields fective yields, but we note that this parameter remains
uncertain and may trend higher than its fiducial value.
The effective iron yield of core-collapse supernova per
unit gas mass cannot be directly constrained from a sam-
ple of stellar abundance data. We constrain its value by
 R-Process Collapsars 5

2.5. Constraining Model Parameters: Fitting Stellar 3. STELLAR ABUNDANCE SAMPLES

Abundance Data 3.1. Sample Selection
After fixing the effective iron yield, stellar abundances We use a stellar abundance sample from the R-process
are used to constrain the other model parameters. The Alliance (RPA), a collection of detailed abundances of
stellar abundance data provides us effectively four ob- 601 halo stars (Hansen et al. 2018; Sakari et al. 2018;
servable quantities of interest: Ezzeddine et al. 2020; Holmbeck et al. 2020). The RPA
1. the mean metallicity of the stars, h[Fe/H]i, stars are bright (V < 13.5), metal-poor ([Fe/H] . −2)
red giant stars in the Milky Way stellar halo. They
2. the mean r-process abundance, h[Eu/Fe]i,
were observed with a focus on obtaining a statistically
3. the estimated fraction of stars that formed from complete sample of europium abundances. To verify the
gas not enriched by an r-process event, f0 , RPA data, we also consider a sample of 228 metal-poor
red giant halo stars from Roederer et al. (2014b) (hence-
4. the observed scatter in r-process abundance be-
forth R14). Both of these samples report europium mea-
tween stars, IQREu .
surements or upper limits for every star.
Rather than quantifying scatter with standard devia- The R14 sample has [Eu/Fe] abundances that are 0.22
tion, σ(Eu), we use the more robust interquartile range, dex lower and [Fe/H] abundances that are 0.19 dex lower
a measure of statistical dispersion equal to the difference from other samples due to using a much cooler effective
between the 75th and 25th percentiles, denoted IQREu . temperature scale and isochrone-based surface gravities
Model parameters are then determined as follows: (Roederer et al. 2014a). We thus shift the reported mea-
hNr i and α: The average number of collapsars, hNr i, surements up by these amounts when plotting in Figure
and the exponent of the r-process yield power law distri- 2 and reporting values in Table 1.
bution, α, are determined by comparing the observed f0 We restrict most of our analysis to very metal-poor
and r-process scatter, IQREu , to those predicted by our ([Fe/H] < −2.5) stars, and the highest metallicity we
models with varying hNr i and α. In a small metallic- consider is [Fe/H] < −1.75 (when analyzing the evo-
ity bin, the shape of the [Eu/Fe] distribution function is lution of the Eu scatter with increasing metallicity in
dependent on only these two parameters. The other po- Section 4.1). We only consider stars with barium-to-
tentially relevant parameters contribute only to shifting europium abundance ratios that could be produced by
the distribution to higher or lower [Eu/Fe]. By focusing the r-process (−0.9 . [Ba/Eu] . −0.4). [Ba/Eu] higher
on only the shape of the distribution, we can avoid mak- than ∼ −0.4 indicates contamination from the s-process,
ing assumptions about any additional parameters when another nucleosynthetic process which forms europium.
determining hNr i and α. The solar r-process barium-to-europium ratio is [Ba/Eu]
NSN and fr : The number of SN enriching the gas, ≈ −0.8 (Sneden et al. 2008), and stars with much lower
NSN , is determined from the mean metallicity of the [Ba/Eu] cannot be explained by the r-process pattern.
stars and the effective iron yield using hMFe /MH i = We note that small variations in these purity cuts do
NSN × yFe,eff . The fraction of supernova that are collap- not significantly change our results.
sars, fr = hNr i /NSN , is then found by combining NSN Taking into account these restrictions (with [Fe/H]
and the average number of collapsars, hNr i, from above. < −2.5), the RPA sample includes 83 stars with Eu
Mr,min and hMr i: We first determine the average r- measurements and an additional 11 stars with Eu up-
process yield produced per collapsar, hMr i, using the per limits. The R14 sample includes 36 stars with Eu
relationship: hMr i fretained XEu ≈ hMEu i / hNr i. In measurements and 4 with Eu upper limits. The RPA
this equation, hMEu i is found by considering the mean sample (up to [Fe/H] < −1.75) and its IQREu in differ-
r-process abundance h[Eu/Fe]i and mean metallicity ent metallicity bins can be seen in Figure 1b.
h[Fe/H]i in combination with MH ≈ Mgas . The mini-
mum r-process yield is then Mr,min = hMr i α−2 3.2. Construction of Statistical Distributions
α−1 .
We do not attempt to model higher moments of the To combine the mixture of measurements and upper
[Eu/Fe] distribution beyond the mean and scatter be- limits into a statistical distribution of europium for each
cause we expect selection effects in the data to domi- sample, we employ survival statistics, a branch of statis-
nate. We also do not attempt to model the shape of the tics that deals with censored datasets, e.g., upper lim-
distribution tails. If these are robustly measured in the its. The most general single variate survival statistic is
future, they could constrain whether our assumption of the Kaplan-Meier estimator (KME), which provides a
a power law is an appropriate shape for the r-process non-parametric maximum likelihood estimate of a dis-
yield distribution and improve constraints on α and Nr . tribution from observed data. The Kaplan-Meier es-
6 Brauer et al.

1.00
RPA Sample
R14 Sample
0.75 75th percentile

0.50
CDF

0.25 25th percentile

IQR
0.00
1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
[Eu/Fe]

Figure 2. Cumulative distribution functions for the RPA and R14 samples. Both CDFs are determined using the Kaplan-Meier
estimator, which takes into account detections and upper limits to estimate the true distribution. The shaded regions show 95%
confidence on the CDF estimate. Grey lines outline the interquartile range (25%-75%) for the RPA Kaplan-Meier CDF. The
CDFs have been extended to the y-axis to show the estimated fraction of stars in each sample that have no r-process elements.

Table 1. Interquartile ranges and fraction of stars formed from gas with no r-process enrichment for different [Eu/Fe] CDFs
from observational stellar samples with [Fe/H] < −2.5. The distributions can be seen in Figure 2. IQREu uncertainties are due
to both KME confidence levels and uncertain observations. The f0 values are upper limits as the distribution could continue to
lower [Eu/Fe] with lower f0 .

Stellar Abundance Sample IQREu f0 h[Eu/Fe]i h[Fe/H]i

RPA 0.50+0.15
−0.10 0.04+0.10
−0.04 0.3+0.1
−0.1 −2.7+0.1
−0.1
R14 0.38+0.51
−0.14 0.04+0.11
−0.04 0.2+0.2
−0.2 −2.9+0.1
−0.1

timator and survival statistics have been used exten- forward modeling the observational sample is beyond the
sively in astronomical literature (e.g. Feigelson & Nel- scope of this paper. We thus use the Kaplan-Meier es-
son 1985; Schmitt 1985; Wardle & Knapp 1986; Simcoe timate while keeping in mind that this may not be a
et al. 2004). We use the KaplanMeierFitter from the perfect estimate.
survival analysis python package lifelines (Davidson- Figure 2 shows the [Eu/Fe] cumulative distribution
Pilon et al. 2020). For this estimate to be valid, two functions for the RPA and R14 samples. The interquar-
assumptions about the distribution of upper limits must tile range, IQREu , differs slightly for the different sam-
hold. First, the upper limits should be independent of ples but is consistent within the uncertainty. The mean
each other, which is true here as the stars are inde- [Eu/Fe] and [Fe/H] also differ slightly. The zero-limit
pendent. Second, the upper limits should be random – f0 , the estimated fraction of stars that formed from gas
i.e., the probability that a measurement will be censored that was not enriched by an r-process event, is the same
should not correlate with the measurement value itself. in both samples. In our model, f0 is the fraction of
This assumption may not hold because lower [Eu/Fe] stars with no europium enrichment ([Eu/Fe] = −∞),
values are more likely to be censored. Ideally, we would but we cannot identify if real stars have no r-process
fully forward model and censor our theoretical results, enrichment (and stars could receive trace amounts of
but that requires many additional assumptions includ- europium enrichment through other processes despite
ing a completeness function (probability of measuring the [Ba/Eu] cuts we applied to purify our sample). We
any value given [Eu/Fe]), an error function (the value thus estimate f0 in the data by taking the lowest CDF
we measure for [Eu/Fe] given its true value), and an up- value from the observed distribution as estimated by
per limit function (the probability of setting a [Eu/Fe] survival statistics. This assumes that the CDF imme-
upper limit at a specific value given its true value). Fully diately plateaus at lower [Eu/Fe] instead of continuing
 R-Process Collapsars 7

to decrease. Because the distribution could continue by only europium detections. The R14 sample is ex-
to decrease with lower [Eu/Fe], the observed f0 values cluded from this plot because it has too few stars in
are upper limits. Realistically, the real distribution cer- each bin to determine distributions.
tainly does not fully plateau even if our f0 estimate is As metallicity increases, hNr i should increase
p linearly,
correct because of the possible other trace sources of eu- but the scatter should decrease with hNr i. Repro-
ropium, but for the purposes of this analysis and because ducing the IQREu in several metallicity bins thus sug-
we cannot estimate the CDF to extremely low [Eu/Fe] gests our model uses the correct hNr i. When binning on
regardless, we ignore those minor effects. These values metallicity, our model with hNr i = 3 at h[Fe/H]i = −2.7
are shown in Table 1. well reproduces the observed decrease in scatter. If we
increase hNr i by a factor of 10 or more, our model cannot
4. RESULTS well reproduce the observed decrease in scatter unless α
We use the stellar abundance data to constrain the is allowed to vary with metallicity. This suggests our
model parameters. The novel feature of our model is fiducial hNr i = 3 is correct despite being a lower bound.
predicting the scatter in addition to the mean evolution. At higher metallicities the “single burst of supernova
The results are summarized in Table 2. enrichment” assumption begins to break down, but the
evolution of IQREu is still a useful metric.
4.1. hNr i and α To be thorough, we also explore the extreme case
where all core-collapse supernovae result in r-process
We use the model described in Section 2 to calculate
collapsars – i.e., all core-collapse supernovae form an ac-
theoretical cumulative distribution functions (CDF) of
cretion disk that is able to synthesize a non-zero amount
stellar [Eu/Fe] abundances. CDFs resulting from differ-
of r-process material (hNr i = NSN and fr = 1). We
ent representative choices of hNr i and α can be seen in
consider the case where hNr i = 3000, where 3000 is our
Figure 3. Each model CDF has an arbitrary offset that
fiducial value of NSN (see Section 4.2). In this extreme
shifts the CDF left or right for plotting purposes. Recall
case, the vast majority of collapsars would produce ex-
that hNr i and α can be constrained using only the shape
tremely small amounts of r-process material. As seen
of the distribution (i.e., the IQREu and f0 ). A higher
in Figure 6, this extreme case can explain the observed
hNr i causes both a lower f0 since fewer stars will form
IQREu with a scatter of IQREu = 0.45 for α = 1.8. The
from un-enriched gas and a narrower distribution due to
upper bound set on hNr i by the evolution of scatter
the central limit theorem. A higher α also narrows the
with metallicity (Figure 5) disfavors this model, how-
distribution by increasing the rarity of high Mr . When
ever. The situation where all core-collapse supernovae
constraining these parameters with the IQREu , a higher
produce r-process is only favored if NSN is below 30,
hNr i thus corresponds to a lower α and vice versa.
lower than even our most extreme NSN value. This ex-
hNr i, the average number of r-process collapsars en-
treme model also does not reproduce the observed dis-
riching our stellar population, is constrained by the es-
tribution at low [Eu/Fe] as well as the fiducial model,
timated fraction of stars which formed from gas not en-
though we note that the tails of the observed distribu-
riched by an r-process event, f0 . For f0 = 0.04, hNr i = 3
tion are less trustworthy than the IQREu . We thus keep
is the best fit value. Figure 4a shows how the value of
hNr i = 3 for our results.
f0 changes with hNr i, independently of α. In this fig-
α, the exponent of the r-process yield power law dis-
ure, the black boxes outline the parameter values which
tribution, is constrained by the IQREu value of the dis-
explain the observed f0 or IQREu . hNr i = 2 to 4 can
tribution, which varies with both α and hNr i as shown
also explain observations. Note that the observed f0 is
in Figure 4b. For hNr i = 3 and IQREu = 0.50+0.15 −0.10 , the
an upper limit as the distribution could smoothly con-
constrained value is α = 2.8+4.2−0.6 .
tinue to lower [Eu/Fe] with a lower f0 . The constraint
on hNr i from f0 is thus a lower bound.
To validate our fiducial value of hNr i = 3, we also re- 4.2. NSN and fr
produce the evolution in europium scatter with increas- The number of supernovae, NSN , is linearly related
ing metallicity. This gives an upper bound to the con- to yFe,eff . To explain the mean metallicity h[Fe/H]i =
straint. We examine the RPA stellar abundance sam- −2.7 ± 0.1 (using the method described in Section 2.5),
ple in several metallicity bins (up to [Fe/H] = −1.65; on the extreme ends of yFe,eff values we need anywhere
see Figure 5). We compare model scatter to the scat- from 30 to 30,000 supernovae; lower yFe,eff corresponds
ter of the RPA distribution as determined by both the to higher NSN as more supernovae are needed to explain
Kaplan-Meier estimator (which takes into account eu- the mean metallicity. For our fiducial value of yFe,eff =
ropium detections and upper limits) and as determined 10−9 , NSN ≈ 3000.
8 Brauer et al.

Table 2. Model parameters determined from observations. The wide ranges of NSN , Mr,min , and yFe,eff encompass broad
uncertainty in the fraction of metals retained in each galaxy and each galaxy’s gas mass. To be thorough we include these full
ranges. We also validate our fiducial values for yFe,eff , fr , and hNr i (which also validates NSN , Mr,min , and hMr i). For α, the
full range of values produce similar distribution shapes. Derived parameter values are shown below the double line.

Description Range Fiducial Value

NSN Number of core-collapse supernovae 30 − 30000 3000
hNr i Average number of r-process collapsars 2−4 3
Mr,min Minimum r-process yield produced per collapsar (see Eq. 1) 3 × 10−4 − 3 × 10−1 3 × 10−2
α Power law exponent of Mr distribution (see Eq. 1) 2.2 − 6 2.8
−10
yFe,eff a Effective supernovae iron yield into the total gas mass, yFe fretained /Mgas 10 − 10−7 10−9
fr Fraction of supernovae that are collapsars, hNr i /NSN 10−4 − 10−1 10−3
hMr i Average r-process yield produced per collapsar 7 × 10−4 − 7 × 10−1 7 × 10−2
a determined from literature values

1.00

0.75

0.50
CDF

0.25 < Nr > = 1 = 1.8

< Nr > = 3 = 2.8
< Nr > = 10 = 6.0
0.00
1 0 1 2 1 0 1 2
[Eu/Fe] [Eu/Fe]
Figure 3. Stellar [Eu/Fe] abundance cumulative distribution functions (colored lines) for models with different hNr i and α
values. The observed [Eu/Fe] CDF for the RPA sample is shown in black with grey uncertainty. Our fiducial model, hNr i = 3
and α = 2.8, is shown in solid blue in both plots. When either hNr i or α is not specified, the fiducial value is used. The model
CDFs have an arbitrary offset to shift the distribution left or right for plotting purposes, so only the shape (i.e., the IQR and
zero-fraction) is relevant.

With values for hNr i (from Section 4.1) and NSN , we (Hansen et al. 2020; Ji et al. 2016; Hansen et al. 2017).
can determine the fraction of supernovae that result in r- Since these are extremely small systems, we assume each
process material producing collapsars, fr = hNr i /NSN . of these three dwarfs experienced one r-process event (as
Considering the extremes of the possible values of yFe,eff , in Ji et al. 2016; Brauer et al. 2019), and then estimate
fr ≈ 0.0001 to 0.1. For our fiducial values (hNr i = 3 and the total number of supernovae that contributed to all
yFe,eff = 10−9 ), fr ≈ 0.001. of their stellar populations to estimate fr . We com-
To validate our fiducial choice of yFe,eff , we also esti- bined literature values of their absolute magnitudes MV
mate fr using observations of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (Muñoz et al. 2018; Torrealba et al. 2018; Drlica-Wagner
around the Milky Way. There are now high-resolution et al. 2015; Bechtol et al. 2015; Mutlu-Pakdil et al. 2018)
spectroscopic abundances for stars in 18 surviving ultra- with a Salpeter individual mass function that predicts
faint dwarfs: Bootes I, Bootes II, Canes Venatici II, Ca- 0.02L0 supernovae where L0 is the present-day lumi-
rina II and Carina III, Coma Berenices, Grus I, Grus II, nosity in L (Ji et al. 2016). The ultra-faint dwarfs
Hercules, Horologium I, Leo IV, Reticulum II, Segue 1, cumulatively experienced about 1800 supernovae. The
Segue 2, Triangulum II, Tucana II, Tucana III, and Ursa fraction of supernovae that result in r-process material
Major II. Of these, three of the dwarfs (Grus II, Retic- producing collapsars is thus fr ∼ 3/1800 = 0.002. This
ulum II, and Tucana III) exhibit r-process enrichment validates our fiducial model values of fr ≈ 0.001 and
 R-Process Collapsars 9

1 2 3 4 8 16 32 1 2 3 4 8 16 32
1.6 0.37 0.13 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.6 1.42 1.16 1.04 0.99 0.94 0.88 0.86
0.35 1.8
1.8 0.37 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.11 0.92 0.80 0.75 0.66 0.58 0.55

2.0 0.36 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.0 0.94 0.81 0.66 0.62 0.52 0.44 0.40
1.00
0.30
2.2 0.37 0.13 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.2 0.88 0.74 0.60 0.54 0.43 0.35 0.30

2.4 0.37 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.25 2.4 0.81 0.68 0.54 0.49 0.37 0.30 0.26

2.6 0.37 0.13 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.6 0.73 0.64 0.52 0.45 0.35 0.28 0.22 0.80
2.8 0.38 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.20 2.8 0.71 0.62 0.50 0.43 0.32 0.26 0.21

IQR
f0
3.0 0.37 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.0 0.67 0.61 0.48 0.41 0.31 0.25 0.20

3.5 0.36 0.13 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.15 3.5 0.61 0.56 0.45 0.38 0.29 0.22 0.19 0.60
4.0 0.36 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.0 0.60 0.54 0.43 0.37 0.27 0.22 0.18

4.5 0.38 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.10 4.5 0.56 0.53 0.42 0.37 0.27 0.21 0.18

5.0 0.38 0.14 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.0 0.55 0.52 0.41 0.36 0.26 0.20 0.17 0.40
5.5 0.37 0.13 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.05 5.5 0.53 0.51 0.41 0.36 0.26 0.21 0.17

6.0 0.37 0.13 0.05 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 6.0 0.51 0.50 0.40 0.35 0.27 0.20 0.17
< Nr > 0.00 < Nr > 0.20
(a) Values of the zero-fraction, f0 , for different models. (b) Values of the IQR for different models. The heat
The heat map colors are normalized to f0 = 0.04+0.10 −0.04 , map colors are normalized to IQREu = 0.50+0.15
−0.10 , the
the f0 of the RPA stellar abundance sample (see Table IQR of the RPA stellar abundance sample (see Table
1). Red is higher than observed f0 , blue is lower. hNr i 1). Red is higher than observed IQR, blue is lower. For
alone affects the f0 value. hNr i = 1, we determined the IQR by assuming
symmetry and doubling the 50%-75% range (because
the distribution is always above 25%).

Figure 4. Heat maps showing how the cumulative distribution IQR and zero-fractions of our model vary with hNr i and α.
Black boxes outline the parameter combinations that can explain the stellar data within observational uncertainty (using the
RPA sample; see Table 1). Note: The plotted α values increase by 0.2 until α = 3.0, at which point they increase by 0.5 due to
increasingly slower variation in IQREu .

yFe,eff ≈ 10−9 . We note again, however, that there is α = 2.8, we find Mr,min ≈ 0.03M , or a mean r-process
tension between our fiducial estimate of yFe,eff and sev- yield per collapsar of hMr i ≈ 0.07M .
eral external constraints in very low mass galaxies, as In the extreme case where all core-collapse supernovae
discussed in Section 2.4, so we continue to report the produce a nonzero amount of r-process material (Figure
full uncertainty in these parameters. 6), the minimum amount of r-process material per col-
lapsar would be extremely small, Mr,min ≈ 10−6 M for
4.3. Mr,min hNr i ≈ 3000. This situation is disfavored because it
The minimum r-process yield produced per collapsar, does not reproduce the observed decrease of Eu scatter
Mr,min (see Eq. 1), depends on α and varies linearly with with increasing metallicity unless yFe,eff is much higher
yFe,eff . To transform between total r-process yield (nu- than our fiducial value.
clei with A ≥ 70) and europium yield, we use the solar
r-process europium mass fraction XEu ≈ 10−3 . To ex-
plain the observed mean europium-iron abundance ratio
h[Eu/Fe]i, on the extreme ends of yFe,eff values, we find 5. DISCUSSION
that Mr,min ≈ 0.0003 − 0.3M ; lower yFe,eff corresponds Using stellar abundance data to constrain parameters
to higher Mr,min both because a lower fretained causes in our stochastic collapsar chemical enrichment model
less europium to be retained in the galaxy and because produces a self-consistent physical picture, which was
higher Mgas requires a higher mass of iron and europium not guaranteed a priori. We now discuss this in more
to explain the mean [Fe/H] and [Eu/Fe] abundances. detail and place our results in context with other poten-
For our fiducial values of yFe,eff = 10−9 , hNr i = 3, and tially physically relevant values.
 10 Brauer et al.

1.6 1.6
= 1.8 = 3.5 = 1.8 = 3.5
1.4 = 2.0 = 6.0 1.4 = 2.0 = 6.0
= 2.4 RPA KME IQR = 2.4 RPA KME IQR
1.2 = 2.8 RPA Detections IQR 1.2 = 2.8 RPA Detections IQR
1.0 1.0
0.8 0.8
IQREu

IQREu
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
Nr = 3
0.2 Nr = 6 0.2
Nr = 12 Nr = 30
0.0 Nr = 24 0.0 Nr = 60 Nr = 120 Nr = 240
0.2 0.2
2.8 2.6 2.4 2.2 2.0 1.8 2.8 2.6 2.4 2.2 2.0 1.8
[Fe/H] [Fe/H]
(a) The evolution of the Eu scatter with increasing metallicity (b) If hNr i is increased to hNr i = 30 at h[Fe/H]i = −2.7, no
can be well explained by our fiducial model choices of single choice of α well explains the evolution of the Eu scatter.
hNr i = 3 at h[Fe/H]i = −2.7 (the mean metallicity of our Higher hNr i choices result in poorer matches to observations.
RPA sample) and α = 2.8.

Figure 5. The decrease in the [Eu/Fe] scatter with higher metallicity seen in the data (hollow circles and squares) is reproduced
by our model (colored dots). Each [Fe/H] bin of 0.3 dex corresponds to approximately a factor of 2 increase in supernovae, hence
why we double the number of r-process collapsars in each bin. Reproducing the evolution in the scatter at higher metallicity as
well as low metallicity increases confidence in our fiducial model choices of hNr i and α.
1.00 duces heavy r-process material via accretion disk winds
and launches a collimated outflow, but does not require
that a jet successfully break out of the progenitor star.
0.75 The power law distribution yields adopted in Section 2
naturally includes less extreme explosions that produce
smaller amounts of r-process material via disk outflows.
0.50
CDF

To reproduce the observed scatter in [Eu/Fe] abun-

dances at low metallicity with a collapsar-like model, we
require that the fraction of CCSN producing r-process
0.25 material is between 10−4 and 10−1 with a fiducial value
of 10−3 . We now compare these values to the observed
RPA sample rates for various classes of transients that have previ-
Model: < Nr > = 3000, = 1.8
0.00 ously been proposed to be powered by collapsars or jet-
1 0 1 2 driven explosions.
[Eu/Fe] We begin with long-duration γ-ray bursts (LGRBs).
Figure 6. Distribution for an extreme model where all Current measurements of the local (z=0) rate for
core-collapse supernovae produce some r-process material LGRBs beamed towards Earth from the Swift satel-
(fr = 1). This extreme model can explain the observed lite range from 1.3+0.6
−0.7 Gpc
−3
yr−1 for L>1050 ergs
IQREu . It cannot well explain the evolution of scatter with (Wanderman & Piran 2010) to 0.42+0.9 −0.4 Gpc
−3
yr−1 ac-
increasing metallicity, however (e.g., Figure 5). It also can- counting for complex Swift trigger criteria (Lien et al.
not well explain the low [Eu/Fe] tail. For this model, the 2014). Correcting these for a canonical beaming factor
minimum amount of r-process material per collapsar is ex-
of 50 (Guetta et al. 2005), results in inferred intrinsic
tremely small, Mr,min ≈ 10−6 M .
rates of 65+0.30
−0.35 Gpc
−3
yr−1 and 21+4.5
−2 Gpc−3 yr−1 ,
respectively. Comparing these to the local CCSN rate
5.1. Implications of fr : The Fraction of CCSN that from the Lick Observatory SN Search (LOSS) of 0.705
Produce Collapsars (±0.089) ×10−4 Mpc−3 yr−1 (Li et al. 2011a) yields
What fraction of core-collapse supernovae (CCSN) RLGRB /RCCSN values of (2−9)×10−4 . This range of
produce collapsars? Recall that our definition of col- values is only slightly lower than our fiducial value of
lapsar is motivated by physical picture in which a rapid fr . LGRBs could thus be linked to r-process produc-
fallback accretion onto a black hole simultaneously pro- tion. Our uncertainty on fr errs toward a higher value
 R-Process Collapsars 11

Lengine or Eiso distribution

tengine distribution, high

tengine distribution, low
Figure 7. Constraints on hMr i, fr , and α from our model (blue) in context of potentially physically relevant values (black
dotted lines). For descriptions of the reference values, see Section 5. Our fiducial model values are plotted as a blue dot, while
the dark blue shaded region represents an order of magnitude uncertainty around our fiducial values and the light blue shaded
region represents the full uncertainty.

for the r-process fraction, though, so fr could very well BL SN represent a higher fraction of all CCSN at low
be larger than fLGRB . In that case, we would require metallicity, which is what our parameter fr actually con-
that massive stars beyond those that launch successful strains. Unfortunately, to date, there has been no untar-
GRBs form accretion disks with physical conditions ca- geted, volume-limited study that examines the fraction
pable of producing heavy r-process material. of CCSN that are Type Ic-BL at low-metallicity. Graur
In particular, Type Ic-BL supernovae are a class of et al. (2017b) and Arcavi et al. (2010) examine relative
hydrogen-poor SN that display high ejecta velocities rates of different core collapse SN subtype in “high” and
(hence “broad-lined”) and kinetic energies (∼1052 ergs) “low” mass galaxies for the LOSS and early PTF sam-
for which central engines are commonly evoked. While ples, respectively. Graur et al. (2017b) find no signifi-
the nature of the central engine is still debated (Thomp- cant difference in the Type Ic-BL fraction (1-2%), while
son et al. 2004; MacFadyen & Woosley 1999; Barnes Arcavi et al. (2010) find that Type Ic-BL may make up
et al. 2018), the fact that all SN observed in associa- a significantly higher fraction of all SN (∼ 10 − 13%)
tion with LGRBs have been Type Ic-BL supernovae has in low luminosity galaxies. We caution, however, that
lead to the hypothesis that all events of this class are both samples contain only 2-3 Type Ic-BL events and
powered by jets. Differences in the detailed manifesta- are therefore dominated by low number statistics.
tion of these explosions (LGRBs, low-luminosity GRBs, RIc−BL /RCCSN values of 0.01–0.1 fall within the range
relativistic SN, or “ordinary” Ic-BL SN) would then be of fr found by our model (see Figure 7). However, the
driven by a distribution of engine timescales or progeni- latter is at the extreme high end, implying that while
tor radii (e.g. Lazzati et al. 2012; Margutti et al. 2014). our model is consistent with all Type Ic-BL SNe pro-
We therefore compare our constraints on fr to the rates ducing europium, it favors a scenario in which .10%
of Type Ic-BL SN to investigate if they are consistent do. We note that this would not preclude the possibility
with all Type Ic-BL SN harboring collapsar engines. that all Type Ic-BL SNe harbor jets, but rather require
Based on the full LOSS sample, Shivvers et al. (2017) that some lack the accretion disk properties necessary
find that Type Ic-BL SN account for a fraction of (1.1 ± for the production of heavy r-process material. This
0.8) ×10−2 of CCSN. However, the LOSS sample was a could imply that a subset of Type Ic-BL SNe (a) harbor
targeted survey, biased towards high metallicity galax- accreting black holes, but do not reach sufficiently high
ies and it is well established that Type Ic-BL SN show accretion rates (> 10−3 M s−1 ) to proceed past 56 Ni-
a preference for low metallicity environments (e.g. Mod- rich outflows (Siegel et al. 2019), or (b) harbor magnetar
jaz et al. 2020). It is therefore possible that Type Ic- central engines for which neutrino irradiation can limit
12 Brauer et al.

neucleosynthesis from disk ejecta to the light r-process intersection of the r-process yield expected per LGRB
(e.g. Margalit & Metzger 2017; Radice et al. 2018). and the fraction of LGRBs per CCSN (see Figure 7).
This supports the possibility that LGRBs are linked to
5.2. Implications of hMr i: The Amount of r-Process
r-process production.
Yield Produced per Collapsar
For the final reference mass, we compare to the
Our determination of the minimum and average amount of r-process yield that was produced in the r-
amounts of r-process yield produced per collapsar process event that enriched the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy
(Mr,min ≈ 0.03M and hMr i ≈ 0.07M , respectively) is Reticulum II (Ji et al. 2016). This galaxy preserves r-
based entirely on our analysis of RPA stellar abundance process enrichment from a single prolific event in the
data, independent of any previous estimates in litera- early universe. To explain the europium abundances of
ture of the amount of r-process material that might be its stars, it likely experienced an event with a europium
produced by such events. To place our results in con- yield of 10−4.3 to 10−4.6 M (Ji et al. 2016). With
text, we compare them to several reference estimates of XEu = 10−3 , this corresponds to Mr ∼ 0.04M . Our
r-process yields from single events (see Figure 7). Note hMr i value is only slightly higher than this mass. This
again that we define r-process yield as the yield of nuclei yield is also consistent with that expected for neutron
with mass number A ≥ 70. star mergers (e.g., the yield estimated from GW170817,
Siegel et al. (2019) demonstrated that accretion disk Siegel 2019; Côté et al. 2018).
outflows in collapsars could produce significant amounts
of r-process material. For different presupernova mod-
5.3. Implications of α: Learning About Collapsar
els, they found the amount of europium varied from
Properties from r-Process Abundance Scatter
6.0 × 10−6 M to 5.8 × 10−4 M , or Mr = 0.006 to
0.579 M (for our definition Mr ). Their fiducial model Unfortunately, the current precision on the shape of
corresponds to Mr = 0.27M . Their fiducial yield is the [Eu/Fe] distribution does not provide tight con-
about four times larger than our fiducial average yield, straints on α, the exponent of our r-process yield power
but our Mr,min and hMr i values fall within their range law distribution. For hNr i = 3, any α = 2.2−6.0 can ex-
of yields. In Figure 7, the shaded region correspond to plain the observed scatter. Our fiducial value of α = 2.8
the spread of r-process yields found by the Siegel et al. best fits the data, but the full range of possible values
(2019) simulations. produces similar distribution widths (see Figure 4b).
Furthermore, if we assume that the isotropic energy The α constraints from metal-poor stars can be
of a γ-ray burst roughly traces the amount of r-process compared to power law distributions of long γ-ray
yield, we can compare the energies of LGRBs to that burst (LGRB) engine duration, engine luminosity, and
of GW170817 to estimate the Mr from collapsars in isotropic energy. Figure 7 shows our constraints on α in
which the associated jet successfully breaks out of the context with the exponents from these distributions.
progenitor star. This assumption predicates on the Petropoulou et al. (2017) modeled the central engines
ideas that (1) the same physical processes act in both which power LGRBs, determining power law distribu-
short and long GRBs and (2) the accretion phase dur- tions for both the engine luminosities and engine activ-
ing which europium is produced roughly coincides with ity times: p(Lengine ) ∝ L−αL and p(tengine ) ∝ t−αt . By
the phase during which the GRB occurs in the source assuming that more powerful engines can more quickly
frame, matching assumptions of Siegel et al. (2019). break out of the collapsing star to produce γ-ray signals
Côté et al. (2018) infer that ∼ 3 − 15 × 10−6 M of (with a breakout time that scales with jet luminosity as
europium was ejected from the post-merger accretion L−χ ), they show that the shape of the γ-ray duration
disk of GW170817. This translates to ∼ 0.01M of distribution can be uniquely determined by the observed
heavy r-process material for a europium mass fraction GRB luminosity function. In particular, they determine
of XEu = 10−3 . The istropic γ-ray energy of GW170817 the power law indexes of the Lengine and tengine dis-
was Eγ,iso,GW 170817 = 2.1+6.4 52 tributions by connecting them with the observed distri-
−1.5 × 10 ergs (Hajela et al.
2019), and from a sample of 468 LGRBs, the mean butions of luminosities and durations of LGRBs. For
istropic energy of LGRBs is Eγ,iso,LGRBs ≈ 2.6+2.7 χ = 1/3, Petropoulou et al. (2017) find αL = 2.4 and
−0.5 ×
1053 ergs (Wang et al. 2020). With these values: αt = 3.5, while for χ = 1/2, they constrain αL = 2.4
and αt = 4.6. In addition, by assuming a single breakout
Eγ,iso,LGRBs
Mr,collapsar ∼ Mr,GW 170817 ∼ 0.1M time, Sobacchi et al. (2017) find a power law distribution
Eγ,iso,GW 170817 for tengine consistent with αt ∼ 4.
(see also Siegel 2020). This aligns with our fiducial value Furthermore, we can determine the isotropic energy
of hMr i. In particular, our fiducial results lie near the distribution of LGRBs since E ∝ L × t. Because both
 R-Process Collapsars 13

found that collapsar outflows are too neutron-poor to

produce heavy r-process isotopes. A recent study by
6
Miller et al. (2019) that investigated the Siegel et al.
(2019) results with more detailed modeling of neutrino
5
transport also found that collapsar outflows are inca-
constraint

pable of producing third peak r-process material.

4 Neutron star mergers are a demonstrated source of
r-process thanks to GW170817 and, in principle, their
3 europium yields can vary as well with different neutron
star binary masses, mass ratios (Korobkin et al. 2012;
2 Bauswein et al. 2013; Hotokezaka et al. 2013; Dietrich
±0.2 ±0.1 ±0.05 ±0.025 et al. 2015; Sekiguchi et al. 2016), and eccentricities
IQREu uncertainty (Chaurasia et al. 2018; Papenfort et al. 2018). Fur-
thermore, the Mr,min and hMr i values in our model are
Figure 8. To improve our constraint on α, we must improve
our measurement of the stellar IQREu for metal-poor stars. roughly consistent with the r-process yield estimated
Here we show how the α constraint is improved for several for GW170817 (Siegel 2019; Côté et al. 2018). Because
different IQREu uncertainties. of this, variable-yield neutron star mergers could also
potentially explain the r-process scatter in metal-poor
Lengine and tengine draw from power law distributions, stars via a similar model to that presented in this pa-
the distribution of their product follows the distribution per. More work is needed to determine a reasonable
of the variable with a smaller α, in this case αL = 2.4. distribution of r-process effective yields from neutron
Our α constraint overlaps with all of these values, with star mergers, combining input distributions of binary
the fiducial value falling closer to Lengine or Eiso . Any neutron star properties and yields (e.g., those from the
of these properties could therefore potentially trace the numerical simulations cited above) and kick velocities
r-process yield. For a better constraint on α, we need a (e.g., Tarumi et al. 2020; Safarzadeh et al. 2019a; Bonetti
significantly lower uncertainty on the observed IQREu . et al. 2019).
Figure 8 shows how tightly IQREu must be measured
for the stellar samples to improve the α constraint. This 6. CONCLUSIONS
plot was constructed assuming the IQREu is centered on We have produced a self-consistent model in which
IQREu = 0.50, as found for the RPA sample. To differ- collapsars synthesize all of the r-process material in the
entiate between the distributions for tengine and Lengine early universe. By assuming the r-process material in
or Eiso , the IQREu must be measured with uncertainty metal-poor ([Fe/H] < −2.5) stars was formed exclusively
< 0.05 dex. This abundance precision is better than in collapsars with stochastic yields, we can reproduce
what current measurements can achieve in metal-poor the observed distribution of europium abundances with
stars, though it may become achievable in the future as parameter values that are consistent with other inde-
stellar spectroscopy methods improve. pendently determined reference values. This was not
The IQREu is a robust but very inefficient estimator guaranteed a priori.
of the distribution shape. Alternatively, we could use This is not evidence that collapsars dominantly pro-
the full distribution shape. This requires a reliable se- duce r-process material in the early universe, however.
lection function, but would likely not demand 0.05 dex Neutron star mergers with variable effective europium
precision. yields may also be able to explain the r-process scatter.
More work is needed on the effective europium yields of
5.4. Neutron Star Mergers vs. Collapsars neutron star mergers. In particular, the retention frac-
Here we focused on collapsars, demonstrating that a tion is important for the collapsar model, but it becomes
r-process production site with a power law distribution even more important for neutron star mergers with dif-
inspired by LGRB jet properties can self-consistently re- ferent natal kick velocities and coalescence times.
produce the abundances and scatter observed in metal- Abundance scatter of metal-poor stars is an impor-
poor stars. These results would also apply to another tant window into the different mechanisms producing
prompt r-process site with a power law yield, however. r-process elements. Individual mechanisms can produce
The possibility that collapsars produce r-process ma- scatter without the need for multiple sources. In this
terial is debated. For example, earlier semi-analytic paper, we assume a power law distribution of collap-
work on collapsar disk winds by Surman et al. (2006) sar r-process yields. The range of constrained values
14 Brauer et al.

for the exponent α is comparable to those of the dis- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

tributions for long γ-ray burst isotropic energies, engine
luminosities, and engine times (Section 5.3). Improved We thank Daniel Siegel for providing nucleosynthesis
constraints on α could allow us to investigate which, if products from his group’s collapsar simulations and for
any, of these collapsar properties trace r-process yield. helpful discussions. We also thank Paz Beniamini and
Lastly, in our model, the fraction of core-collapse su- Tony Piro for helpful discussions. KB was supported
pernovae that result in r-process collapsars, fr , is com- by the United States Department of Energy grant DE-
parable to the fraction of core-collapse supernovae that SC0019323 while conducting this research. APJ is sup-
result in long γ-ray bursts. This could indicate a link ported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-
between LGRBs and r-process. The uncertainty in our HF2-51393.001, awarded by the Space Telescope Science
model errs to higher fr , though, and if fr is higher then Institute, which is operated by the Association of Uni-
we would require a significant number of r-process col- versities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA,
lapsars that do not produce long γ-ray bursts. Our under contract NAS5-26555. APJ also acknowledges a
model also favors a scenario in which . 10% of Type Carnegie Fellowship and the Thacher Research Award
Ic-BL supernovae produce europium. This does not pre- in Astronomy. MRD acknowledges support from the
clude all Ic-BL SNe from harboring choked jets, but NSERC through grant RGPIN-2019-06186, the Canada
would imply that some Ic-BL SNe lack the accretion Research Chairs Program, the Canadian Institute for
disk properties to synthesize heavy r-process isotopes. Advanced Research (CIFAR), and the Dunlap Insti-
tute at the University of Toronto. AF acknowledges
support from NSF grant AST-1716251, the Silverman
(1968) Family Career Development Professorship, and
thanks the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for their won-
derful Fellow’s program and generous hospitality.

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 R-Process Collapsars 17

APPENDIX

A. AVERAGE IRON YIELD FROM CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE

To estimate an average iron yield from core-collapse supernovae (CCSN), we calculate a weighted average between
observations of H-rich CCSN and H-poor CCSN. The majority of the iron comes from the Ni-56 → Co-56 → Fe-56
decay chain, so we adopt mean Ni-56 yields for both Type II SN and Type IIb/Ib/Ic SN as measured from modeling
their bolometric light curves, and account for the relative rate between these two broad classes. The mean Ni-56 yield
from H-rich CCSN is 0.044 ± 0.044M (Anderson 2019). The mean Ni-56 yield from Type II CCSN is 0.12 ± 0.12M
(Afsariardchi et al. 2020). For the relative rates of stripped envelope to Type II CCSN, we adopt the results of the
Lick Observatory SN Search (LOSS; Li et al. 2011b). While LOSS was a targeted survey, it remains the most complete
volume-limited supernova search completed to date. We consider two cases: (1) Based on the entire LOSS sample,
Shivvers et al. (2017) find the relative fractions of Type II and stripped envelope SN of 69.6+6.7 +5.0
−6.7 % and 30.4−4.9 %,
respectively. This implies an average iron yield of 0.067M . (2) However, the ratio of Type II to stripped envelope
SN is metallicity dependent. Graur et al. (2017a) examined the relative rates the LOSS sample as a function of
host galaxy mass and metallicity. In their lowest metallicity bin, the ratio of SESN and Type II SN specific rates is
+0.09
RSE /RII = 0.13−0.08 , a factor of three lower than the overall LOSS sample above. Adopting this value, and making
the (rather large) assumption that the the average nickel yield of each class is not a function of metallicity, we find an
average CCSN iron yield of 0.053M . In both (1) and (2), the average yield is slightly below the order of yFe ≈ 0.1M ,
with the uncertainty of fretained and Mgas far outweighing that of yFe .