2023/12/08 by Nan Liu, Liu, Nan, C. M. O'd. Alexander +9 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Planetary Science and Exploration #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2312.05347
openalex publication_date 2023/12/08 · openalex created_date 2023/12/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report C, N, Si, and Al-Mg isotope data for 39 presolar X silicon carbide (SiC) and four silicon nitride grains - a group of presolar grains that condensed in the remnants of core-collapse Type II supernovae (CCSNe) - isolated from the Murchison meteorite. Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) data were used to determine the Mg and Al contents of the X SiC grains for comparison with the Mg/Al ratios determined by secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). Previous SIMS studies have used O-rich standards in the absence of alternatives. In this study, the correlated isotopic and elemental data of the X SiC grains enabled accurate determination of the initial 26Al/27Al ratios for the grains. Our new grain data suggest that (i) the literature data for X grains are affected to varying degrees by asteroidal/terrestrial contamination, and (ii) the Al/Mg ratios in SiC are a factor of two (with +/-6% 1 sigma uncertainties) lower than estimated based on the SIMS analyses that used O-rich standards. The lowered Al/Mg ratios result in proportionally higher inferred initial 26Al/27Al ratios for presolar SiC grains. In addition, the suppression of asteroidal/terrestrial contamination in this study leads to the observation of negative trends for 12C/13C-30Si/28Si and 26Al/27Al-30Si/28Si among our CCSN grains. We discuss these isotope trends in the light of explosive CCSN nucleosynthesis models, based on which we provide new insights into several non-traditional CCSN nucleosynthesis processes, including explosive H burning, the existence of a C/Si zone in the outer regions of CCSNe, and neutrino-nucleus reactions in deep CCSN regions.