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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallCore-collapse supernovae may contribute to the Milky Way’s fluorine: neutrinos released by a collapsing stellar core can help convert neon-20 into fluorine-19 inside the star. Some of that fluorine may survive the explosion and enter interstellar gas. But this is one proposed source, not a settled explanation for all Galactic fluorine. Other models assign a major role to rapidly rotating massive stars, with contributions from aging stars also possible.
How can a supernova make fluorine?
Fluorine’s stable isotope is fluorine-19. In the proposed neutrino process, neutrinos streaming from a collapsing stellar core interact with neon-20 in the surrounding star. This interaction can produce fluorine-19. The supernova’s shock wave can destroy some of the newly made fluorine; surviving material is ejected and returned to the surrounding interstellar medium.
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The mechanism is modeled as neutrino spallation, or inelastic neutrino scattering, on neon-20 in the progenitors of Type II (core-collapse) supernovae. It is a nucleosynthesis proposal supported by stellar-yield and abundance modeling, not a direct observation of fluorine forming inside an exploding star. The foundational model is described by Renda et al. (2004); a later observational study discusses the channel in its analysis of Milky Way stars.
What do stars’ fluorine abundances tell us?
Astronomers estimate stellar fluorine by analyzing hydrogen fluoride (HF) vibration-rotation lines in high-resolution infrared spectra. Some useful lines lie near 2.335 micrometres. The inferred abundance patterns can be compared with predictions from models of how the Galaxy’s chemical composition changed over time. They are clues about possible sources, rather than labels identifying where each fluorine atom formed.
#1 Best Overall
The low-metallicity pattern
A 2019 study of Milky Way red giants, covering roughly −1.3 ≤ [Fe/H] ≤ 0, reported that below [Fe/H] of about −0.4 to −0.5, [F/Fe] is nearly constant and below the solar ratio, at around −0.3 to −0.4 dex. In the authors’ comparison, neutrino nucleosynthesis in Type II supernovae could reproduce a primary-like trend at low metallicity. “Primary-like” here describes a pattern a model can produce; it does not uniquely identify the process that made the observed fluorine.
The same comparison found primary behavior in some models of rapidly rotating, low-metallicity massive stars, but those models overproduced fluorine at low metallicity under the assumptions used. That difference makes the abundance trend useful for testing models, but not decisive proof of a single source. See Pilachowski et al. (2019).
A reported Galactic gradient
Pilachowski et al. reported a thick-disk and halo [F/Fe] gradient of 0.02 ± 0.03 dex per kiloparsec over galactocentric radii of about 6–13.7 kpc. This is a result for the studied stars and populations, not a universal measurement of the Milky Way.
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Fluorine production has been proposed in several settings: core-collapse supernovae through the neutrino process, rapidly rotating massive stars, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, Wolf–Rayet stars, and novae. AGB stars can make fluorine during thermal pulses, although fluorine can also be destroyed in some stellar conditions.
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A 2022 chemical-evolution analysis, published online on 4 November 2022 and in the January 2023 issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, reached a different overall ranking from a supernova-centered explanation. In its models, rapidly rotating massive stars were the dominant contributor; AGB stars were also needed from around [Fe/H] ≈ −1. Wolf–Rayet stars and novae were not significant contributors under the yields and assumptions adopted. The authors concluded: “To conclude, our study into the chemical evolution of fluorine in the Milky Way has found that rapidly rotating massive stars are the dominant contributor to fluorine.” That is the conclusion of their model analysis, not a universal consensus about fluorine’s origin. The paper is Wallner et al. (2022).
Different rankings need not be direct contradictions: studies can use different stellar yields, rotation assumptions, reaction rates, neutrino fluxes and energies, explosion details, and Galactic chemical-evolution models. No single consensus percentage for the supernova share is established by these studies.
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How strong is the observational evidence?
The 2019 red-giant sample covered roughly −1.3 ≤ [Fe/H] ≤ 0. The later Wallner et al. analysis compared observations over −2 < [Fe/H] < 0.4 and included low-metallicity upper limits spanning −3.4 < [Fe/H] < −2.3. These are the metallicity ranges of data used in those analyses, not measurements of what fraction of fluorine came from supernovae.
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HF infrared lines are weak, and telluric absorption from Earth’s atmosphere and blending with other spectral features complicate measurements. At low metallicity, observations are especially sparse; some stars have upper limits rather than firm detections. Those limitations leave room for model uncertainty and make it difficult to distinguish among production channels using abundance patterns alone.
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What is the best-supported answer?
Supernova neutrinos provide a plausible way to make fluorine from neon-20, and abundance trends are consistent with a contribution from that process. But the evidence does not show that supernovae are the Milky Way’s only or dominant fluorine source. A newer chemical-evolution study instead favors rapidly rotating massive stars in its models and includes AGB stars as another contributor. The overall source mix remains dependent on model assumptions and limited observations, especially at low metallicity.
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