Galactic Chemical Evolution and Heavy Element Nucleosynthesis

Many aspects of the origin and evolution of heavy elements in nature are yet to be clearly understood. This talk will overview the current status of models for the formation of r-process, s-process and p-process elements. We summarize recent state-of the art developments of supernova and binary neutron star evolution for both r-process and νp-process nucleosynthesis. In particular, we highlight two recent recent works detailing the emerging evidence from galactic chemical evolution for the important role of hypernovae (energetic supernovae) and collapsars (jets from the collapse of massive stars to a black hole). These studies illuminate how such events may play a key role in the origin and early evolution of explosive heavy-element nucleosynthesis.