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ABSTRACT One of the high-level goals of Galactic archaeology is chemical tagging of stars across the Milky Way to piece together its assembly history. For this to work, stars born together must be uniquely chemically homogeneous. Wide binary systems are an important laboratory to test this underlying assumption. Here, we present the detailed chemical abundance patterns of 50 stars across 25 wide binary systems comprised of main-sequence stars of similar spectral type identified in Gaia DR2 with the aim of quantifying their level of chemical homogeneity. Using high-resolution spectra obtained with McDonald Observatory, we derive stellar atmospheric parameters and precise detailed chemical abundances for light/odd-Z (Li, C, Na, Al, Sc, V, Cu), α (Mg, Si, Ca), Fe-peak (Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn), and neutron capture (Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, La, Nd, Eu) elements. Results indicate that 80 per cent (20 pairs) of the systems are homogeneous in [Fe/H] at levels below 0.02 dex. These systems are also chemically homogeneous in all elemental abundances studied, with offsets and dispersions consistent with measurement uncertainties. We also find that wide binary systems are far more chemically homogeneous than random pairings of field stars of similar spectral type. These results indicate that wide binary systems tend to be chemically homogeneous but in some cases they can differ in their detailed elemental abundances at a level of [X/H] ∼ 0.10 dex, overall implying chemical tagging in broad strokes can work.
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The detailed chemical abundance patterns of accreted halo stars from the optical to infrared
ABSTRACT Understanding the assembly of our Galaxy requires us to also characterize the systems that helped build it. In this work, we accomplish this by exploring the chemistry of accreted halo stars from Gaia-Enceladus/Gaia-Sausage (GES) selected in the infrared from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) Data Release 16. We use high resolution optical spectra for 62 GES stars to measure abundances in 20 elements spanning the α, Fe-peak, light, odd-Z, and notably, the neutron-capture groups of elements to understand their trends in the context of and in contrast to the Milky Way and other stellar populations. Using these derived abundances we find that the optical and the infrared abundances agree to within 0.15 dex except for O, Co, Na, Cu, and Ce. These stars have enhanced neutron-capture abundance trends compared to the Milky Way, and their [Eu/Mg] and neutron-capture abundance ratios (e.g. [Y/Eu], [Ba/Eu], [Zr/Ba], [La/Ba], and [Nd/Ba]) point to r-process enhancement and a delay in s-process enrichment. Their [α/Fe] trend is lower than the Milky Way trend for [Fe/H] > −1.5 dex, similar to previous studies of GES stars and consistent with the picture that these stars formed in a system with a lower rate of star formation. This is further supported by their depleted abundances in Ni, Na, and Cu abundances, again, similar to previous studies of low-α stars with accreted origins.
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- PAR ID:
- 10409909
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 513
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0035-8711
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 1557-1580
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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