Galactic Chemical Evolution of Short-lived Radioactive Isotopes Produced by Explosive Nucleosynthesis: 60Fe and 53Mn featuring Thomas Trueman (Konkoly Observatory)

Hosted by: Taoyu Jiao (Konkoly Observatory)

Abstract: Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) provides a framework for connecting stellar nucleosynthesis to the chemical composition and evolution of the Milky Way. In this talk, I will introduce the basic concepts underlying GCE modelling, focusing on the OMEGA+ open-source code, which allows a large parameter space of different assumptions about Galactic evolution and stellar nucleosynthesis to be explored within a unified framework.

I will then present a recent application of OMEGA+ to predict the evolution of two short-lived radionuclides (SLRs), ⁶⁰Fe and ⁵³Mn, in the interstellar medium. Both SLRs were present in the early Solar System, and their short half-lives (compared to galactic timescales) make them valuable tracers of the circumstances and stellar enrichment processes that preceded the formation of the Sun. I will discuss how their Galactic evolution depends on the contributions of different supernovae and on uncertainties in stellar nucleosynthesis, and compare the predicted radioactive-to-stable isotopic ratios with meteoritic measurements. Finally, I will discuss how these predictions can help to constrain the length of time that the Solar System was isolated from the broader Galactic environment prior to its formation.