Galactic Chemical Evolution of r-process elements and short lived radioisotopes

The origin of the heaviest elements is still a puzzle. For the rapid neutron capture process (r-process), multiple sites have been proposed, e.g., neutron star mergers and (sub-classes) of supernovae. R -process elements have been measured in a large fraction of metal-poor stars. Galactic archaeology studies show that the r-process abundances among these stars vary by over 2 orders of magnitude. On the other hand, abundances in stars with solar-like metallicity do not
differ greatly. This leads to two major open questions: 1. What is the reason for such a huge abundance scatter of r -process elements in the early galaxy? 2. While the large scatter at low metallicities might point to a rare production site, why is there barely any scatter at solar metallicities? In this talk, I will discuss chemical evolution scenarios that provide an explanation for the observed abundance features of r-process elements in our Galaxy. Further, I will explain how adding short lived radioisotopes to the model can help to further constrain the r-process and other processes.