Binarity in carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars Starkenburg, Else; Shetrone, Matthew D; McConnachie, Alan W ...
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
06/2014, Letnik:
441, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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A substantial fraction of the lowest metallicity stars show very high enhancements in carbon. It is debated whether these enhancements reflect the stars’ birth composition, or if their atmospheres ...were subsequently polluted, most likely by accretion from an asymptotic giant branch binary companion. Here we investigate and compare the binary properties of three carbon-enhanced subclasses: The metal-poor CEMP-s stars that are additionally enhanced in barium; the higher metallicity (sg)CH- and Ba II stars also enhanced in barium; and the metal-poor CEMP-no stars, not enhanced in barium. Through comparison with simulations, we demonstrate that all barium-enhanced populations are best represented by a ∼100 per cent binary fraction with a shorter period distribution of at maximum ∼20 000 d. This result greatly strengthens the hypothesis that a similar binary mass transfer origin is responsible for their chemical patterns. For the CEMP-no group we present new radial velocity data from the Hobby–Eberly Telescope for 15 stars to supplement the scarce literature data. Two of these stars show indisputable signatures of binarity. The complete CEMP-no data set is clearly inconsistent with the binary properties of the CEMP-s class, thereby strongly indicating a different physical origin of their carbon enhancements. The CEMP-no binary fraction is still poorly constrained, but the population resembles more the binary properties in the solar neighbourhood.
We examine the spatial distribution of the oldest and most metal-poor stellar populations of Milky Way-sized galaxies using the A Project Of Simulating The Local Environment (APOSTLE) cosmological ...hydrodynamical simulations of the Local Group. In agreement with earlier work, we find strong radial gradients in the fraction of the oldest (t sub( form) < 0.8 Gyr) and most metal-poor (Fe/H < -2.5) stars, both of which increase outwards. The most metal-poor stars form over an extended period of time; half of them form after z = 5.3, and the last 10 per cent after z = 2.8. The age of the metal-poor stellar population also shows significant variation with environment; a high fraction of them are old in the galaxy's central regions and an even higher fraction in some individual dwarf galaxies, with substantial scatter from dwarf to dwarf. We investigate the dependence of these results on the assumptions made for metal mixing. Overall, over half of the stars that belong to both the oldest and most metal-poor population are found outside the solar circle. Somewhat counter-intuitively, we find that dwarf galaxies with a large fraction of metal-poor stars that are very old are systems where metal-poor stars are relatively rare, but where a substantial old population is present. Our results provide guidance for interpreting the results of surveys designed to hunt for the earliest and most pristine stellar component of our Milky Way.
We investigate the origin of galaxy bimodality by quantifying the relative role of intrinsic and environmental drivers to the cessation (or ‘quenching’) of star formation in over half a million local ...Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies. Our sample contains a wide variety of galaxies at z = 0.02–0.2, with stellar masses of 8 < log(M*/M⊙) < 12, spanning the entire morphological range from pure discs to spheroids, and over four orders of magnitude in local galaxy density and halo mass. We utilize published star formation rates and add to this recent GIM2D photometric and stellar mass bulge + disc decompositions from our group. We find that the passive fraction of galaxies increases steeply with stellar mass, halo mass, and bulge mass, with a less steep dependence on local galaxy density and bulge-to-total stellar mass ratio (B/T). At fixed internal properties, we find that central and satellite galaxies have different passive fraction relationships. For centrals, we conclude that there is less variation in the passive fraction at a fixed bulge mass, than for any other variable, including total stellar mass, halo mass, and B/T. This implies that the quenching mechanism must be most tightly coupled to the bulge. We argue that radio-mode active galactic nucleus feedback offers the most plausible explanation of the observed trends.
Abstract
Although true metal-free “Population III” stars have so far escaped discovery, their nature, and that of their supernovae, is revealed in the chemical products left behind in the next ...generations of stars. Here we report the detection of an ultra-metal-poor star in the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy AS0039. With Fe/H
LTE
= −4.11, it is the most metal-poor star discovered in any external galaxy thus far. Contrary to the majority of Milky Way stars at this metallicity, AS0039 is clearly not enhanced in carbon, with C/Fe
LTE
= −0.75, and
A
(C) = +3.60, making it the lowest detected carbon abundance in any star to date. Furthermore, it lacks
α
-element uniformity, having extremely low Mg/Ca
NLTE
= −0.60 and Mg/Ti
NLTE
= −0.86, in stark contrast with the near solar ratios observed in C-normal stars within the Milky Way halo. The unique abundance pattern indicates that AS0039 formed out of material that was predominantly enriched by a ∼20
M
⊙
progenitor star with an unusually high explosion energy
E
= 10 × 10
51
erg. Therefore, star AS0039 represents some of the first observational evidence for zero-metallicity hypernovae and provides a unique opportunity to investigate the diverse nature of Population III stars.
ABSTRACT
Carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars are a unique resource for Galactic archaeology because they probe the properties of the First Stars, early chemical evolution, and binary interactions ...at very low metallicity. Comparing the fractions and properties of CEMP stars in different Galactic environments can provide us with unique insights into the formation and evolution of the Milky Way halo and its building blocks. In this work, we investigate whether directly comparing fractions of CEMP stars from different literature samples of very metal-poor ($\rm {Fe/H}\,\lt\, -2.0$) stars is valid. We compiled published CEMP fractions and samples of Galactic halo stars from the past 25 years, and find that they are not all consistent with each other. Focusing on giant stars, we find significant differences between various surveys when comparing their trends of Fe/H versus C/Fe and their distributions of CEMP stars. To test the role of the analysis pipelines for low-resolution spectroscopic samples, we re-analysed giant stars from various surveys with the sspp and ferre pipelines. We found systematic differences in C/Fe of ∼0.1−0.4 dex, partly independent of degeneracies with the stellar atmospheric parameters. These systematics are likely due to the different pipeline approaches, different assumptions in the employed synthetic grids, and/or the comparison of different evolutionary phases. We conclude that current biases in (the analysis of) very metal-poor samples limit the conclusions one can draw from comparing different surveys. We provide some recommendations and suggestions that will hopefully aid the community to unlock the full potential of CEMP stars for Galactic archaeology.
As the remnants of stars with initial masses 8 M , white dwarfs contain valuable information on the formation histories of stellar populations. In this paper, we use deep, high-quality, u-band ...photometry from the Canada-France Imaging Survey, griz photometry from Pan-STARRS1, as well as proper motions from Gaia DR2, to select 25,156 white dwarf candidates over ∼4500 deg2 using a reduced proper motion diagram. We develop a new white dwarf population synthesis code that returns mock observations of the Galactic field white dwarf population for a given star formation history, while simultaneously taking into account the geometry of the Milky Way (MW), survey parameters, and selection effects. We use this model to derive the star formation histories of the thin disk, thick disk, and stellar halo. Our results show that the MW disk began forming stars (11.3 0.5) Gyr ago, with a peak rate of (8.8 1.4) M yr −1 at (9.8 0.4) Gyr, before a slow decline to a constant rate until the present day-consistent with recent results suggesting a merging event with a satellite galaxy. Studying the residuals between the data and best-fit model shows evidence for a slight increase in star formation over the past 3 Gyr. We fit the local fraction of helium-atmosphere white dwarfs to be (21 3)%. Incorporating this methodology with data from future wide-field surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, Euclid, The Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and ultraviolet Research, and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope should provide an unprecedented view into the formation of the MW at its earliest epoch through its white dwarfs.
Several challenges (e.g., sexism, parental leave, the glass ceiling, etc.) disproportionately affect women in academia (and beyond), and thus perpetuate the leaky pipeline metaphor for women who ...opt-out of an academic career. Although this pattern can be seen at all levels of the academic hierarchy, a critical time for women facing such challenges is during the postdoctoral stage, when personal life transitions and professional ambitions collide. Using a social identity approach, we explore factors affecting the mental health of postdoctoral women, including identity development (e.g., as a mother, a scientist) and lack of control (uncertainty about one's future personal and professional prospects), which likely contribute to the leak from academia. In this mixed-method research, Study 1 comprised interviews with postdoctoral women in North America (
= 13) and Europe (
= 8) across a range disciplines (e.g., psychology, physics, political science). Common themes included the negative impact of career uncertainty, gender-based challenges (especially sexism and maternity leave), and work-life balance on mental and physical health. However, interviewees also described attempts to overcome gender inequality and institutional barriers by drawing on support networks. Study 2 comprised an online survey of postdoctoral women (
= 146) from a range of countries and academic disciplines to assess the relationships between social identification (e.g., disciplinary, gender, social group), perceived control (i.e., over work and life), and mental health (i.e., depression, anxiety, stress, and life satisfaction). Postdoctoral women showed mild levels of stress and depression, and were only slightly satisfied with life. They also showed only moderate levels of perceived control over one's life and work. However, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that strongly identifying with one's discipline was most consistently positively associated with both perceived control and mental health. Collectively, these findings implicate the postdoctoral stage as being stressful and tenuous for women regardless of academic background or nationality. They also highlight the importance of disciplinary identity as a potentially protective factor for mental health that, in turn, may diminish the rate at which postdoctoral women leak from the academic pipeline.
We present a detailed study of the faint Milky Way satellite Draco II (Dra II) from deep CFHT/MegaCam broad-band g and i photometry and narrow-band metallicity-sensitive CaHK observations, along with ...follow-up Keck II/DEIMOS multi-object spectroscopy. Forward modelling of the deep photometry allows us to refine the structural and photometric properties of Dra II: the distribution of stars in colour-magnitude space implies Dra II is old (13.5 ± 0.5 Gyr), very metal-poor, very faint (L_V = 180 ^{+124}_{-72} { L_⊙}), and at a distance d = 21.5 ± 0.4 { kpc}. The narrow-band, metallicity-sensitive CaHK Pristine photometry confirms this very low metallicity (Fe/H = -2.7 ± 0.1 dex). Even though our study benefits from a doubling of the spectroscopic sample size compared to previous investigations, the velocity dispersion of the system is still only marginally resolved (σ _{vr}< 5.9 { km s^{-1}} at the 95 per cent confidence level) and confirms that Dra II is a dynamically cold stellar system with a large recessional velocity (< vr> = -342.5^{+1.1}_{-1.2}{ km s^{-1}}). We further show that the spectroscopically confirmed members of Dra II have a mean proper motion of (μ _α ^*,μ _δ)=(1.26 ± 0.27,0.94 ± 0.28) { mas/yr} in the Gaia DR2 data, which translates to an orbit with a pericentre and an apocentre of 21.3 ^{+0.7}_{-1.0} and 153.8 ^{+56.7}_{-34.7} { kpc}, respectively. Taken altogether, these properties favour the scenario of Dra II being a potentially disrupting dwarf galaxy. The low-significance extra-tidal features we map around the satellite tentatively support this scenario.
ABSTRACT
A chemo-dynamical analysis of 115 metal-poor candidate stars selected from the narrow-band Pristine photometric survey is presented based on CFHT high-resolution ESPaDOnS spectroscopy. We ...have discovered 28 new bright (V < 15) stars with Fe/H < −2.5 and 5 with Fe/H < −3.0 for success rates of 40 (28/70) and 19 per cent (5/27), respectively. A detailed model atmosphere analysis is carried out for the 28 new metal-poor stars. Stellar parameters were determined from SDSS photometric colours, Gaia DR2 parallaxes, MESA/MIST stellar isochrones, and the initial Pristine survey metallicities, following a Bayesian inference method. Chemical abundances are determined for 10 elements (Na, Mg, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Fe, Ni, Y, and Ba). Most stars show chemical abundance patterns that are similar to the normal metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo; however, we also report the discoveries of a new r-process-rich star, a new CEMP-s candidate with Y/Ba > 0, and a metal-poor star with very low Mg/Fe. The kinematics and orbits for all of the highly probable metal-poor candidates are determined by combining our precision radial velocities with Gaia DR2 proper motions. Some stars show unusual kinematics for their chemistries, including planar orbits, unbound orbits, and highly elliptical orbits that plunge deeply into the Galactic bulge (Rperi < 0.5 kpc); also, eight stars have orbital energies and actions consistent with the Gaia-Enceladus accretion event. This paper contributes to our understanding of the complex chemo-dynamics of the metal-poor Galaxy, and increases the number of known bright metal-poor stars available for detailed nucleosynthetic studies.
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