Context. The pattern of chemical abundance ratios in stellar populations of the Milky Way is a fingerprint of the Galactic chemical history. In order to interpret such chemical fossils of Galactic ...archaeology, chemical evolution models have to be developed. However, despite the complex physics included in the most recent models, significant discrepancies between models and observations are widely encountered. Aims. The aim of this paper is to characterise the abundance patterns of five iron-peak elements (Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, and Zn) for which the stellar origin and chemical evolution are still debated. Methods. We automatically derived iron peak (Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, and Zn) and α element (Mg) chemical abundances for 4666 stars, adopting classical LTE spectral synthesis and 1D atmospheric models. Our observational data collection is composed of high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratios HARPS and FEROS spectra, which were previously parametrised by the AMBRE project. Results. We used the bimodal distribution of the magnesium-to-iron abundance ratios to chemically classify our sample stars into different Galactic substructures: thin disc, metal-poor and high-α metal rich, high-α, and low-α metal-poor populations. Both high-α and low-α metal-poor populations are fully distinct in Mg, Cu, and Zn, but these substructures are statistically indistinguishable in Mn and Ni. Thin disc trends of Ni/Fe and Cu/Fe are very similar and show a small increase at supersolar metallicities. Also, both thin and thick disc trends of Ni and Cu are very similar and indistinguishable. Yet, Mn looks very different from Ni and Cu. Mn/Fe trends of thin and thick discs actually have noticeable differences: the thin disc is slightly Mn richer than the thick disc. The Zn/Fe trends look very similar to those of α/Fe trends. The typical dispersion of results in both discs is low (≈0.05 dex for Mg, Mn, and Cu/Fe) and is even much lower for Ni/Fe (≈0.035 dex). Conclusions. It is clearly demonstrated that Zn is an α-like element and could be used to separate thin and thick disc stars. Moreover, we show that the Mn/Mg ratio could also be a very good tool for tagging Galactic substructures. From the comparison with Galactic chemical evolutionary models, we conclude that some recent models can partially reproduce the observed Mg, Zn, and, Cu behaviours in thin and thick discs and metal-poor sequences. Models mostly fail to reproduce Mn and Ni in all metallicity domains, however, models adopting yields normalised from solar chemical properties reproduce Mn and Ni better, suggesting that there is still a lack of realistic theoretical yields of some iron-peak elements. The very low scatter (≈0.05 dex) in thin and thick disc sequences could provide an observational constrain for Galactic evolutionary models that study the efficiency of stellar radial migration.
We analyze 494 main sequence turnoff and subgiant stars from the AMBRE:HARPS survey. These stars have accurate astrometric information from Gaia DR1, providing reliable age estimates with relative ...uncertainties of ±1 or 2 Gyr and allowing precise orbital determinations. The sample is split based on chemistry into a low-Mg/Fe sequence, which are often identified as thin disk stellar populations, and high-Mg/Fe sequence, which are often associated with thick disk stellar populations. We find that the high-Mg/Fe chemical sequence has extended star formation for several Gyr and is coeval with the oldest stars of the low-Mg/Fe chemical sequence: both the low- and high-Mg/Fe sequences were forming stars at the same time. We find that the high-Mg/Fe stellar populations are only vertically extended for the oldest, most-metal poor and highest Mg/Fe stars. When comparing vertical velocity dispersion for the low- and high-Mg/Fe sequences, the high-Mg/Fe sequence has lower vertical velocity dispersion than the low-Mg/Fe sequence for stars of similar age. This means that identifying either group as thin or thick disk based on chemistry is misleading. The stars belonging to the high-Mg/Fe sequence have perigalacticons that originate in the inner disk, while the perigalacticons of stars on the low-Mg/Fe sequence are generally around the solar neighborhood. From the orbital properties of the stars, the high-Mg/Fe and low-Mg/Fe sequences are most likely a reflection of the chemical enrichment history of the inner and outer disk populations, respectively; radial mixing causes both populations to be observed in situ at the solar position. Based on these results, we emphasize that it is important to be clear in defining what populations are being referenced when using the terms thin and thick disk, and that ideally the term thick disk should be reserved for purely geometric definitions to avoid confusion and be consistent with definitions in external galaxies.
Context. To calibrate automatic pipelines that determine atmospheric parameters of stars, one needs a sample of stars, or “benchmark stars”, with well-defined parameters to be used as a reference. ...Aims. We provide detailed documentation of the iron abundance determination of the 34 FGK-type benchmark stars that are selected to be the pillars for calibration of the one billion Gaia stars. They cover a wide range of temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities. Methods. Up to seven different methods were used to analyze an observed spectral library of high resolutions and high signal-to-noise ratios. The metallicity was determined by assuming a value of effective temperature and surface gravity obtained from fundamental relations; that is, these parameters were known a priori and independently from the spectra. Results. We present a set of metallicity values obtained in a homogeneous way for our sample of benchmark stars. In addition to this value, we provide detailed documentation of the associated uncertainties. Finally, we report a value of the metallicity of the cool giant ψ Phe for the first time.
The horizontal-branch (HB) morphology of globular clusters (GCs) is mainly determined by metallicity. However, the fact that GCs with almost the same metallicity exhibit different HB morphologies ...demonstrates that at least one more parameter is needed to explain the HB morphology. It has been suggested that one of these should be a global parameter that varies from GC to GC and the other a nonglobal parameter that varies within the GC. In this study we provide empirical evidence corroborating this idea. We used the photometric catalogs obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys of the Hubble Space Telescope and analyze the color-magnitude diagrams of 74 GCs. The HB morphology of our sample of GCs has been investigated on the basis of the two new parameters L1 and L2 that measure the distance between the red giant branch and the coolest part of the HB and the color extension of the HB, respectively. We find that L1 correlates with both metallicity and age, whereas L2 most strongly correlates with the mass of the hosting GC. The range of helium abundance among the stars in a GC, characterized by Delta Y and associated with the presence of multiple stellar populations, has been estimated in a few GCs to date. In these GCs we find a close relationship among Delta Y, GC mass, and L2. We conclude that age and metallicity are the main global parameters, while the range of helium abundance within a GC is the main nonglobal parameter defining the HB morphology of Galactic GCs.
We present an automated procedure for the derivation of atmospheric parameters (T
eff, log g, M/H) and individual chemical abundances from stellar spectra. The MATrix Inversion for Spectral SynthEsis ...(MATISSE) algorithm determines a basis,
B
θ(λ), allowing the derivation of a particular stellar parameter θ by projection of an observed spectrum. The
B
θ(λ) function is determined from an optimal linear combination of theoretical spectra and it relates, in a quantitative way, the variations in the spectrum flux with variations in θ. An application of this method to the Gaia Radial Velocity Spectrograph spectral range is described, together with its performances for different types of stars of various metallicities. Blind tests with synthetic spectra of randomly selected parameters and observed input spectra are also presented. The method gives rapid, accurate and stable results and it can be efficiently applied to the study of stellar populations through the analysis of large spectral data sets, including moderate to low signal-to-noise ratio spectra.
Context. The chemical evolution of lithium in the Milky Way represents a major problem in modern astrophysics. Indeed, lithium is, on the one hand, easily destroyed in stellar interiors, and, on the ...other hand, produced at some specific stellar evolutionary stages that are still not well constrained. Aims. The goal of this paper is to investigate the lithium stellar content of Milky Way stars in order to put constraints on the lithium chemical enrichment in our Galaxy, in particular in both the thin and thick discs. Methods. Thanks to high-resolution spectra from the ESO archive and high quality atmospheric parameters, we were able to build a massive and homogeneous catalogue of lithium abundances for 7300 stars derived with an automatic method coupling, a synthetic spectra grid, and a Gauss-Newton algorithm. We validated these lithium abundances with literature values, including those of the Gaia benchmark stars. Results. In terms of lithium galactic evolution, we show that the interstellar lithium abundance increases with metallicity by 1 dex from M/H = −1 dex to + 0.0 dex. Moreover, we find that this lithium ISM abundance decreases by about 0.5 dex at super-solar metalllicity. Based on a chemical separation, we also observed that the stellar lithium content in the thick disc increases rather slightly with metallicity, while the thin disc shows a steeper increase. The lithium abundance distribution of α-rich, metal-rich stars has a peak at ALi ~ 3 dex. Conclusions. We conclude that the thick disc stars suffered of a low lithium chemical enrichment, showing lithium abundances rather close to the Spite plateau while the thin disc stars clearly show an increasing lithium chemical enrichment with the metallicity, probably thanks to the contribution of low-mass stars.
Aims. Until recently, most high-resolution spectroscopic studies of the Galactic thin and thick discs were mostly confined to objects in the solar vicinity. Here we aim at enlarging the volume in ...which individual chemical abundances are used to characterise the thin and thick discs, using the first internal data release of the Gaia-ESO survey (GES iDR1). Methods. We used the spectra of around 2000 FGK dwarfs and giants from the GES iDR1, obtained at resolutions of up to R ~ 20 000 with the FLAMES/GIRAFFE spectrograph. We derive and discuss the abundances of eight elements (Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, Fe, Cr, Ni, and Y). Results. We show that the trends of these elemental abundances with iron are very similar to those in the solar neighbourhood. We find a natural division between α-rich and α-poor stars, best seen in the bimodality of the Mg/M distributions in bins of metallicity, which we attribute to thick- and thin-disc sequences, respectively. This separation is visible for most α-elements and for aluminium. With the possible exception of Al, the observed dispersion around the trends is well described by the expected errors, leaving little room for astrophysical dispersion. Using previously derived distances from the first paper from this series for our sample, we further find that the thick-disc is more extended vertically and is more centrally concentrated towards the inner Galaxy than the thin-disc, which indicates a shorter scale-length. We derive the radial (4 to 12 kpc) and vertical (0 to 3.5 kpc) gradients in metallicity, iron, four α-element abundances, and aluminium for the two populations, taking into account the identified correlation between RGC and | Z |. Similarly to other works, a radial metallicity gradient is found in the thin disc. The positive radial individual α/M gradients found are at variance from the gradients observed in the RAVE survey. The thin disc also hosts a negative vertical metallicity gradient in the solar cylinder, accompanied by positive individual α/M and Al/M gradients. The thick-disc, on the other hand, presents no radial metallicity gradient, a shallower vertical metallicity gradient than the thin-disc, an α-elements-to-iron radial gradient in the opposite sense than that of the thin disc, and positive vertical individual α/M and Al/M gradients. We examine several thick-disc formation scenarii in the light of these radial and vertical trends.
Context. The chemical evolution of neutron capture elements in the Milky Way disc is still a matter of debate. There is a lack of statistically significant catalogues of such element abundances, ...especially those of the r-process. Aims. We aim to understand the chemical evolution of r-process elements in Milky Way disc. We focus on three pure r-process elements Eu, Gd, and Dy. We also consider a pure s-process element, Ba, in order to disentangle the different nucleosynthesis processes. Methods. We take advantage of high-resolution FEROS, HARPS, and UVES spectra from the ESO archive in order to perform a homogeneous analysis on 6500 FGK Milky Way stars. The chemical analysis is performed thanks to the automatic optimization pipeline GAUGUIN. We present abundances of Ba (5057 stars), Eu (6268 stars), Gd (5431 stars), and Dy (5479 stars). Based on the α/Fe ratio determined previously by the AMBRE Project, we chemically characterize the thin and the thick discs, and a metal-rich α-rich population. Results. First, we find that the Eu/Fe ratio follows a continuous sequence from the thin disc to the thick disc as a function of the metallicity. Second, in thick disc stars, the Eu/Ba ratio is found to be constant, while the Gd/Ba and Dy/Ba ratios decrease as a function of the metallicity. These observations clearly indicate a different nucleosynthesis history in the thick disc between Eu and Gd–Dy. The r/Fe ratio in the thin disc is roughly around +0.1 dex at solar metallicity, which is not the case for Ba. We also find that the α-rich metal-rich stars are also enriched in r-process elements (like thick disc stars), but their Ba/Fe is very different from thick disc stars. Finally, we find that the r/α ratio tends to decrease with metallicity, indicating that supernovae of different properties probably contribute differently to the synthesis of r-process elements and α-elements. Conclusions. We provide average abundance trends for Ba/Fe and Eu/Fe with rather small dispersions, and for the first time for Gd/Fe and Dy/Fe. This data may help to constrain chemical evolution models of Milky Way r- and s-process elements and the yields of massive stars. We emphasize that including yields of neutron-star or black hole mergers is now crucial if we want to quantitatively compare observations to Galactic chemical evolution models.
Context. As observational evidence steadily accumulates, the nature of the Galactic bulge has proven to be rather complex: the structural, kinematic, and chemical analyses often lead to contradictory ...conclusions. The nature of the metal-rich bulge – and especially of the metal-poor bulge – and their relation with other Galactic components, still need to be firmly defined on the basis of statistically significant high-quality data samples. Aims. We used the fourth internal data release of the Gaia-ESO survey to characterize the bulge metallicity distribution function (MDF), magnesium abundance, spatial distribution, and correlation of these properties with kinematics. Moreover, the homogeneous sampling of the different Galactic populations provided by the Gaia-ESO survey allowed us to perform a comparison between the bulge, thin disk, and thick disk sequences in the Mg/Fe vs. Fe/H plane in order to constrain the extent of their eventual chemical similarities. Methods. We obtained spectroscopic data for ~2500 red clump stars in 11 bulge fields, sampling the area −10° ≤ l ≤ + 8° and −10° ≤ b ≤ −4° from the fourth internal data release of the Gaia-ESO survey. A sample of ~6300 disk stars was also selected for comparison. Spectrophotometric distances computed via isochrone fitting allowed us to define a sample of stars likely located in the bulge region. Results. From a Gaussian mixture models (GMM) analysis, the bulge MDF is confirmed to be bimodal across the whole sampled area. The relative ratio between the two modes of the MDF changes as a function of b, with metal-poor stars dominating at high latitudes. The metal-rich stars exhibit bar-like kinematics and display a bimodality in their magnitude distribution, a feature which is tightly associated with the X-shape bulge. They overlap with the metal-rich end of the thin disk sequence in the Mg/Fe vs. Fe/H plane. On the other hand, metal-poor bulge stars have a more isotropic hot kinematics and do not participate in the X-shape bulge. Their Mg enhancement level and general shape in the Mg/Fe vs. Fe/H plane is comparable to that of the thick disk sequence. The position at which Mg/Fe starts to decrease with Fe/H, called the “knee”, is observed in the metal-poor bulge at Fe/H knee = −0.37 ± 0.09, being 0.06 dex higher than that of the thick disk. Although this difference is inside the error bars, it suggest a higher star formation rate (SFR) for the bulge than for the thick disk. We estimate an upper limit for this difference of Δ Fe/H knee = 0.24 dex. Finally, we present a chemical evolution model that suitably fits the whole bulge sequence by assuming a fast (<1 Gyr) intense burst of stellar formation that takes place at early epochs. Conclusions. We associate metal-rich stars with the bar boxy/peanut bulge formed as the product of secular evolution of the early thin disk. On the other hand, the metal-poor subpopulation might be the product of an early prompt dissipative collapse dominated by massive stars. Nevertheless, our results do not allow us to firmly rule out the possibility that these stars come from the secular evolution of the early thick disk. This is the first time that an analysis of the bulge MDF and α-abundances has been performed in a large area on the basis of a homogeneous, fully spectroscopic analysis of high-resolution, high S/N data.
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