Revisiting the Perseus Cluster. I. Resolving the Si/S/Ar/Ca Ratios by Stellar Convection

Abstract Chemical abundance measurements from stars in the Milky Way to the intragalactic medium in the Perseus Cluster have challenged the spherical explosion models. Models in the literature cannot closely match the observed element ratios, where Si, S are overproduced and Ar, Ca are underproduced. In this article, we explore the impact of the model parameters during the evolution of massive stars on the final explosive nucleosynthesis. We investigate the effects of a parameterized model of the convective process, including the mixing length parameter and the semiconvection parameter, on the production of Si-group elements. We search for the value pair that can reduce the discrepancy in the models. We conclude that a mixing length parameter of 2.2 and a semiconvection parameter of 0.03 are required to fit these criteria. Using this updated value pair, we compute a sequence of massive star models from M ZAMS = 15–40 M ⊙ . The high-resolution data from future observations, such as XRISM, will provide further details on less constrained processes in stellar evolution and supernova explosions. Future comparison with supernova models of various progenitor metallicity will further shed light on the supernova population and their relative rates on cosmological scales.