2025ApJ...985..250X -
Astrophys. J., 985, 250 (2025/June-1)
Main-sequence Turnoff Stars as Probes of the Ancient Galactic Relic: Chemo-dynamical Analysis of a Pilot Sample.
XIE R., LI H., ZHANG R., WU Y., XUE X.-X., ZHAO G., ZHANG S.-L. and XIE X.-J.
Abstract (from CDS):
The main-sequence turnoff (MSTO) stars well preserve the chemical properties where they were born, making them ideal tracers for studying the stellar population. We perform a detailed chemo-dynamical analysis on moderately metal-poor (-2.0 < [Fe/H] < -1.0) MSTO stars to explore the early accretion history of the Milky Way. Our sample includes four stars observed with high-resolution spectroscopy using ESPaDOnS at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and 163 nearby MSTO stars selected from the SAGA database with high-resolution results. Within the action-angle spaces, we identified Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus (GSE, 35 objects), stars born in the Milky Way (in situ, 31 objects), and other substructures (21 objects). We find that both GSE and in situ stars present a similar Li plateau around A(Li) ∼ 2.17. GSE shows a clear α-knee feature in Mg at [Fe/H] ∼ -1.60 ± 0.06, while the α-elements of in situ stars remain nearly constant within this metallicity range. The iron-peak elements show little difference between GSE and in situ stars except for Zn and Ni, which decrease in GSE at [Fe/H] > -1.6, while they remain constant for in situ stars. Among heavy elements, GSE shows overall enhancement in Eu, with [Ba/Eu] increasing with the metallicity, while this ratio remains almost constant for in situ stars, suggesting the contribution of longer timescale sources to the s-process in GSE. Moreover, for the first time, we present the r-process abundance pattern for an extremely r-process enhanced (r-II) GSE star, which appears consistent with the solar r-process pattern except for Pr. Further investigation of larger GSE samples using high-resolution spectra is required to explore the reason for the significantly higher Pr in the GSE r-II star.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Journal keyword(s):
Milky Way dynamics - Chemical abundances - Milky Way stellar halo
Simbad objects:
10
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