Collapsars as Sites of r-process Nucleosynthesis: Systematic Near-Infrared Follow-up of Type Ic-BL Supernovae
Creators: name: Anand, Shreya
name: Barnes, Jennifer
name: Yang, Sheng
name: Kasliwal, Mansi M.
name: Coughlin, Michael W.
name: Sollerman, Jesper
name: De, Kishalay
name: Fremling, Christoffer
name: Corsi, Alessandra
name: Ho, Anna Y. Q.
name: Balasubramanian, Arvind
name: Omand, Conor
name: Srinivasaragavan, Gokul P.
name: Cenko, S. Bradley
name: Ahumada, Tomas
name: Andreoni, Igor
name: Dahiwale, Aishwarya
name: Das, Kaustav Kashyap
name: Jencson, Jacob
name: Karambelkar, Viraj
name: Kumar, Harsh
name: Metzger, Brian D.
name: Perley, Daniel
name: Sarin, Nikhil
name: Schweyer, Tassilo
name: Schulze, Steve
name: Sharma, Yashvi
name: Sit, Tawny
name: Stein, Robert
name: Tartaglia, Leonardo
name: Tinyanont, Samaporn
name: Tzanidakis, Anastasios
name: van Roestel, Jan
name: Yao, Yuhan
name: Bloom, Joshua S.
name: Cook, David O.
name: Dekany, Richard
name: Graham, Matthew J.
name: Groom, Steven L.
name: Kaplan, David L.
name: Masci, Frank J.
name: Medford, Michael S.
name: Riddle, Reed
name: Zhang, Chaoran
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: One of the open questions following the discovery of GW170817 is whether neutron star mergers are the only astrophysical sites capable of producing $r$-process elements. Simulations have shown that 0.01-0.1M$_\odot$ of $r$-process material could be generated in the outflows originating from the accretion disk surrounding the rapidly rotating black hole that forms as a remnant to both neutron star mergers and collapsing massive stars associated with long-duration gamma-ray bursts (collapsars). The hallmark signature of $r$-process nucleosynthesis in the binary neutron star merger GW170817 was its long-lasting near-infrared emission, thus motivating a systematic photometric study of the light curves of broadlined stripped-envelope (Ic-BL) supernovae (SNe) associated with collapsars. We present the first systematic study of 25 SNe Ic-BL -- including 18 observed with the Zwicky Transient Facility and 7 from the literature -- in the optical/near-infrared bands to determine what quantity of $r$-process material, if any, is synthesized in these explosions. Using semi-analytic models designed to account for $r$-process production in SNe Ic-BL, we perform light curve fitting to derive constraints on the $r$-process mass for these SNe. We also perform independent light curve fits to models without $r$-process. We find that the $r$-process-free models are a better fit to the light curves of the objects in our sample. Thus we find no compelling evidence of $r$-process enrichment in any of our objects. Further high-cadence infrared photometric studies and nebular spectroscopic analysis would be sensitive to smaller quantities of $r$-process ejecta mass or indicate whether all collapsars are completely devoid of $r$-process nucleosynthesis.
description: 37 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables