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arXiv · 2609.25200

CRIMSONS: An Online Tool for Modeling Chemical Enrichment with Stochastic IMF Sampling

Abstract

Chemical enrichment is a universal process shaped by several interconnected factors, including stellar feedback, the nature of chemical polluters, and the underlying distribution of stellar masses. Three key ingredients are often difficult to treat simultaneously in chemical-evolution models: the stochastic sampling of the stellar IMF, uncertainties in stellar nucleosynthesis yields, and pre-enrichment from primordial PopIII stars. In low star-formation rate environments, incomplete IMF sampling makes enrichment sensitive to the random presence or absence of massive supernova progenitors. Here, we present CRIMSONS, the first online tool designed to model chemical enrichment while self-consistently incorporating these three ingredients. The framework allows users to explore different IMFs, stellar population masses and metallicities, and multiple stellar yield sets. It follows the evolution of individual stars and tracks 30 elements(H-Zn), including contributions from SN, AGB stars, and TypeIa SNe. The current implementation adopts a closed-box framework, neglecting gas flows and spatial mixing, thus providing a controlled setup to isolate the effects of IMF sampling, stellar yields, and PopIII pre-enrichment. With CRIMSONS, we show that incomplete IMF sampling produces large abundance scatter, particularly in low-mass stellar populations. Different yield prescriptions introduce element-dependent variations, while some abundance ratios remain comparatively robust across models. Finally, comparison between models including primordial enrichment and those adopting only a metallicity floor shows that PopIII pre-enrichment can significantly affect subsequent chemical evolution. CRIMSONS therefore provides a controlled framework for quantifying the relative impact of stochastic IMF sampling, nucleosynthetic uncertainties, and primordial pre-enrichment on predicted abundance patterns

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Martina Rossi, Lapo Querci, Stefano Ciabattini, Stefania Salvadori, Irene Vanni, Davide Massari, Edoardo Ceccarelli, Donatella Romano, Viola Gelli, Raffaele Pascale, Alice Mori, Elka Rusta, Ioanna Koutsouridou, Ása Skúladóttir, Laura Magrini, Riano Giribaldi, Jose Schiappacasse-Ulloa. 2026-09-21. CRIMSONS: An Online Tool for Modeling Chemical Enrichment with Stochastic IMF Sampling. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25200

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