Chemical Yields from Supernovae and Hypernovae

Abstract

We review the final stages of stellar evolution, supernova properties, and chemical yields as a function of the progenitor's mass M. (1) 8 - 10 Ms stars are super-AGB stars when the O+Ne+Mg core collapses due to electron capture. These AGB-supernovae may constitute an SN 2008S-like sub-class of Type IIn supernovae. These stars produce little alpha-elements and Fe-peak elements, but are important sources of Zn and light p-nuclei. (2) 10 - 90 Ms stars undergo Fe-core collapse. Nucleosynthesis in aspherical explosions is important, as it can well reproduce the abundance patterns observed in extremely metal-poor stars. (3) 90 - 140 Ms stars undergo pulsational nuclear instabilities at various nuclear burning stages, including O and Si-burning. (4) 140 - 300 Ms stars become pair-instability supernovae, if the mass loss is small enough. (5) Stars more massive than 300 Ms undergo core-collapse to form intermediate mass black holes.

13 pages, 10 figures. Published in the Proceedings of IAU Symposium No. 254 "The Galaxy Disk in Cosmological Context" (2009), eds. J. Andersen, J. Bland-Hawthorn, and B. Nordstrom (Cambridge University Press), pp. 355-367