Triggered Star Formation Inside the Shell of a Wolf-Rayet Bubble as the origin of the Solar System

Abstract

A critical constraint on solar system formation is the high ${}^{26}$Al/${}^{27}$Al abundance ratio of 5 $\times 10^{-5}$ at the time of formation, which was about 17 times higher than the average Galactic ratio, while the ${}^{60}$Fe/${}^{56}$Fe value was about $2\times 10^{-8}$, lower than the Galactic value. This challenges the assumption that a nearby supernova was responsible for the injection of these short-lived radionuclides into the early solar system. We show that this conundrum can be resolved if the Solar System was formed by triggered star formation at the edge of a Wolf-Rayet (W-R) bubble. Aluminium-26 is produced during the evolution of the massive star, released in the wind during the W-R phase, and condenses into dust grains that are seen around W-R stars. The dust grains survive passage through the reverse shock and the low density shocked wind, reach the dense shell swept-up by the bubble, detach from the decelerated wind and are injected into the shell. Some portions of this shell subsequently collapses to form the dense cores that give rise to solar-type systems. The subsequent aspherical supernova does not inject appreciable amounts of ${}^{60}$Fe into the proto-solar-system, thus accounting for the observed low abundance of ${}^{60}$Fe. We discuss the details of various processes within the model and conclude that it is a viable model that can explain the initial abundances of ${}^{26}$Al and ${}^{60}$Fe. We estimate that 1-16% of all Sun-like stars could have formed in such a setting of triggered star formation in the shell of a WR bubble.

19 pages, 6 figures. Accepted version. Final published version with proof corrections can be found on the Astrophysical Journal web page for ApJ, 2017, 851, 147

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• Possible Implications of Relatively High Levels of Initial ${}^{60}$Fe in Iron Meteorites for the Non-Carbonaceous -- Carbonaceous Meteorite Dichotomy and Solar Nebula Formation
• Nuclear astrophysics