The Heavy Element Enrichment History of the Universe from Neutron Star Mergers with Habitable Worlds Observatory

Eric Burns; Jennifer Andrews; Robert Szabo; Brad Cenko; Paul O'Brien; Heloise Stevance; Ian Roederer; Mark Elowitz; Om Sharan Salafia; Luca Fossati; Margarita Karovska; Eunjeong Lee; Gijs Nelemans; Igor Andreoni; Filippo D'Ammando; Pranav Nalamwar; Brendan O'Connor; Griffin Hosseinzadeh; Eliza Neights; Endre Takacs; Melinda Soares-Furtado; Maria Babiuc Hamilton; Borja Anguiano; Stéphane Blondin; Frank Soboczenski; Shivani Shah

arXiv · 2507.09778

The Heavy Element Enrichment History of the Universe from Neutron Star Mergers with Habitable Worlds Observatory

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Abstract

Understanding where elements were formed has been a key goal in astrophysics for nearly a century, with answers involving cosmology, stellar burning, and cosmic explosions. Since 1957, the origin of the heaviest elements (formed via the rapid neutron capture process; r-process) has remained a mystery, identified as a key question to answer this century by the US National Research Council. With the advent of gravitational wave astronomy and recent measurements by the James Webb Space Telescope we now know that neutron star mergers are a key site of heavy element nucleosynthesis. We must now understand the heavy element yield of these events as well as mapping when these mergers occurred back through cosmic time, currently thought to peak when the universe was half its current age. This requires an extremely sensitive ultraviolet, optical, and infrared telescope which can respond rapidly to external discoveries of neutron star mergers. We here describe how the Habitable Worlds Observatory can provide the first complete answer to one of the questions of the century.

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Eric Burns, Jennifer Andrews, Robert Szabo, Brad Cenko, Paul O'Brien, Heloise Stevance, Ian Roederer, Mark Elowitz, Om Sharan Salafia, Luca Fossati, Margarita Karovska, Eunjeong Lee, Gijs Nelemans, Igor Andreoni, Filippo D'Ammando, Pranav Nalamwar, Brendan O'Connor, Griffin Hosseinzadeh, Eliza Neights, Endre Takacs, Melinda Soares-Furtado, Maria Babiuc Hamilton, Borja Anguiano, Stéphane Blondin, Frank Soboczenski, Shivani Shah. 2025-07-13. The Heavy Element Enrichment History of the Universe from Neutron Star Mergers with Habitable Worlds Observatory. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09778

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