We calculate the evolution of heavy-element abundances from C to Zn in the solar neighborhood, adopting our new nucleosynthesis yields. Our yields are calculated for wide ranges of metallicity (Z ¼ 0YZ ) and the explosion energy (normal supernovae and hypernovae), based on the light-curve and spectra fitting of individual supernovae. The elemental abundance ratios are in good agreement with observations. Among the -elements, O, Mg, Si, S, and Ca show a plateau at ½Fe/H P À1, while Ti is underabundant overall. The observed abundance of Zn (½Zn/Fe $ 0) can be explained only by the high-energy explosion models, as it requires a large contribution of hypernovae. The observed decrease in the odd-Z elements (Na, Al, and Cu) toward low ½Fe/H is reproduced by the metallicity effect on nucleosynthesis. The iron-peak elements (Cr, Mn, Co, and Ni) are consistent with the observed mean values at À2:5 P ½Fe/H P À1, and the observed trend at the lower metallicity can be explained by the energy effect. We also show the abundance ratios and the metallicity distribution functions of the Galactic bulge, halo, and thick disk. Our results suggest that the formation timescale of the thick disk is $1Y3 Gyr.

After the Big Bang, production of heavy elements in the early Universe takes place starting from the formation of the first stars, their evolution, and explosion. The first supernova explosions have strong dynamical, thermal, and chemical feedback on the formation of subsequent stars and evolution of galaxies. However, the nature of the Universe's first stars and supernova explosions has not been well clarified. The signature of the nucleosynthesis yields of the first stars can be seen in the elemental abundance patterns observed in extremely metal-poor stars. Interestingly, those patterns show some peculiarities relative to the solar abundance pattern, which should provide important clues to understanding the nature of early generations of stars. We thus review the recent results of the nucleosynthesis yields of mainly massive stars for a wide range of stellar masses, metallicities, and explosion energies. We also provide yields tables and examine how those yields are affected by some hydrodynamical effects during supernova explosions, namely, explosion energies from those of hypernovae to faint supernovae, mixing and fallback of processed materials, asphericity, etc. Those parameters in the supernova nucleosynthesis models are constrained from observational data of supernovae and metal-poor stars. Nucleosynthesis yields are then applied to the chemical evolution model of our Galaxy and other types of galaxies to discuss how the chemical enrichment process occurred during evolution.

We present new nucleosynthesis yields as functions of the stellar mass, metallicity, and explosion energy (corresponding to normal supernovae and Hypernovae). We apply the results to the chemical evolution of the solar neighborhood. Our new yields are based on the new developments in the observational/theoretical studies of supernovae (SNe) and extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars in the halo, which have provided excellent opportunities to test the explosion models and their nucleosynthesis. We use the light curve and spectra fitting of individual SN to estimate the mass of the progenitor, explosion energy, and produced 56 Ni mass. Comparison with the abundance patterns of EMP stars has made it possible to determine the model parameters of core-collapse SNe, such as mixing-fallback parameters.More specifically, we take into account the two distinct new classes of massive SNe: 1) very energetic Hypernovae, whose kinetic energy (KE) is more than 10 times the KE of normal core-collapse SNe, and 2) very faint and low energy SNe (Faint SNe). These two new classes of SNe are likely to be "black-hole-forming" SNe with rotating or non-rotating black holes. Nucleosynthesis in Hypernovae is characterized by larger abundance ratios (Zn,Co,V,Ti)/Fe and smaller (Mn,Cr)/Fe than normal SNe, which can explain the observed trends of these ratios in EMP stars. Nucleosynthesis in Faint SNe is characterized by a large amount of fall-back, which explains the abundance pattern of the most Fe-poor stars. These comparisons suggest that black-hole-forming SNe made important contributions to the early Galactic (and cosmic) chemical evolution.

To reach a deeper understanding of the origin of elements in the periodic table, we construct Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) models for all stable elements from C (A = 12) to U (A = 238) from first principles, i.e., using theoretical nucleosynthesis yields and event rates of all chemical enrichment sources. This enables us to predict the origin of elements as a function of time and environment. In the solar neighborhood, we find that stars with initial masses of M > 30M ⊙ can become failed supernovae if there is a significant contribution from hypernovae (HNe) at M ∼ 20–50M ⊙. The contribution to GCE from super-asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars (with M ∼ 8–10M ⊙ at solar metallicity) is negligible, unless hybrid white dwarfs from low-mass super-AGB stars explode as so-called Type Iax supernovae, or high-mass super-AGB stars explode as electron-capture supernovae (ECSNe). Among neutron-capture elements, the observed abundances of the second (Ba) and third (Pb) peak elements are well reproduced with our updated yields of the slow neutron-capture process (s-process) from AGB stars. The first peak elements (Sr, Y, Zr) are sufficiently produced by ECSNe together with AGB stars. Neutron star mergers can produce rapid neutron-capture process (r-process) elements up to Th and U, but the timescales are too long to explain observations at low metallicities. The observed evolutionary trends, such as for Eu, can well be explained if ∼3% of 25–50M ⊙ HNe are magneto-rotational supernovae producing r-process elements. Along with the solar neighborhood, we also predict the evolutionary trends in the halo, bulge, and thick disk for future comparison with Galactic archeology surveys.

We compare the results of various cosmological gas-dynamical codes used to simulate the formation of a galaxy in the Λ cold dark matter structure formation paradigm. The various runs (13 in total) differ in their numerical hydrodynamical treatment [smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), moving mesh and adaptive mesh refinement] but share the same initial conditions and adopt in each case their latest published model of gas cooling, star formation and feedback. Despite the common halo assembly history, we find large code-to-code variations in the stellar mass, size, morphology and gas content of the galaxy at z= 0, due mainly to the different implementations of star formation and feedback. Compared with observation, most codes tend to produce an overly massive galaxy, smaller and less gas rich than typical spirals, with a massive bulge and a declining rotation curve. A stellar disc is discernible in most simulations, although its prominence varies widely from code to code. There is a well-defined trend between the effects of feedback and the severity of the disagreement with observed spirals. In general, models that are more effective at limiting the baryonic mass of the galaxy come closer to matching observed galaxy scaling laws, but often to the detriment of the disc component. Although numerical convergence is not particularly good for any of the codes, our conclusions hold at two different numerical resolutions. Some differences can also be traced to the different numerical techniques; for example, more gas seems able to cool and become available for star formation in grid-based codes than in SPH. However, this effect is small compared to the variations induced by different feedback prescriptions. We conclude that state-of-the-art simulations cannot yet uniquely predict the properties of the baryonic component of a galaxy, even when the assembly history of its host halo is fully specified. Developing feedback algorithms that can effectively regulate the mass of a galaxy without hindering the formation of high angular momentum stellar discs remains a challenge