We present a homogeneous chemical abundance analysis of 16 elements in 190 metal-poor Galactic halo stars (38 program and 152 literature objects). The sample includes 171 stars with [Fe/H] < -2.5, of which 86 are extremely metal poor, [Fe/H] < -3.0. Our program stars include ten new objects with [Fe/H] < -3.5. We identify a sample of "normal" metal-poor stars and measure the trends between [X/Fe] and [Fe/H], as well as the dispersion about the mean trend for this sample. Using this mean trend, we identify objects that are chemically peculiar relative to "normal" stars at the same metallicity. These chemically unusual stars include CEMP-no objects, one star with high [Si/Fe], another with high [Ba/Sr], and one with unusually low [X/Fe] for all elements heavier than Na. The Sr and Ba abundances indicate that there may be two nucleosynthetic processes at lowest metallicity that are distinct from the main r-process. Finally, for many elements, we find a significant trend between [X/Fe] versus Teff which likely reflects non-LTE and/or 3D effects. Such trends demonstrate that care must be exercised when using abundance measurements in metal-poor stars to constrain chemical evolution and/or nucleosynthesis predictions.
We conducted a long-slit spectrophotometry analysis to obtain the chemical abundances of seven metal-poor HII regions in three galaxies: UM 160, UM 420, and TOL 0513-393. The data have been taken with the Focal Reducer Low Dispersion Spectrograph 1 (FORS1) at the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope. We derived the physical conditions and the chemical abundances of N, O, Ne, S, Ar, and Cl. We also performed a detailed analysis that involves abundance determinations using the $t^2$ formalism. Based on HeI recombination line intensity ratios, together with the Helio14 code, we derived the abundance of He.…
Well studied Open Clusters (OCs) in the Solar neighbourhood are used as reference objects to test galactic and stellar theories. For that purpose their chemical composition needs to be known with a high level of confidence. The aims of this work are (1) to determine accurate and precise abundances of 22 chemical species (from Na to Eu) in the Hyades, Praesepe and Rupecht 147 using a large number of stars at different evolutionary states, (2) to evaluate the level of chemical homogeneity of these OCs, (3) to compare their chemical signatures. We gathered $\sim$800 high resolution and high S/N s…
We present a review about the relevance of the paper by Peimbert and Costero (1969), on the chemical abundance determinations of H II regions. We analize the observational evidence in favor of the presence of temperature variations inside gaseous nebulae. We make a brief mention of the methods used to estimate the contribution of the unobserved ions to the total chemical abundances.
We estimate chemical abundances and ionization parameters in the nuclear region of a sample of 143 galaxies from the Palomar Spectroscopic Survey, composed by Star-Forming Galaxies (87), Seyferts 2 (16) and LINERs (40) using the \textsc{Hii-Chi-mistry} code. We also study for each spectral type the correlation of the derived quantities with other different properties of the host galaxies, such as morphology, stellar mass, luminosity and mass of their Supermassive Black Holes. The results obtained for Star-Forming Galaxies are used to check the soundness of our methodology. Then, we replicate a…
We use integral field spectroscopic (IFS) observations from Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph-North (GMOS-N) to analyse the ionised gas in the principal star-forming region in the blue compact dwarf galaxy SBS 1415+437. The IFS data enable us to map the weak auroral line [O III] $λ$4363 at a spatial scale of $\sim$6.5 pc across a region of $\sim$143 $\times$ 143 pc$^2$. This in turn allows us to use the robust direct T$_e$-method to map the ionic and elemental abundances of nitrogen (N) along with the alpha-elements, oxygen (O), neon (Ne), sulphur (S) and argon (Ar). We utilise these abundances…
Galactic disc chemical evolution models generally ignore azimuthal surface density variation that can introduce chemical abundance azimuthal gradients. Recent observations, however, have revealed chemical abundance changes with azimuth in the gas and stellar components of both the Milky Way and external galaxies. To quantify the effects of spiral arm density fluctuations on the azimuthal variations of the oxygen and iron abundances in disc galaxies. We develop a new 2D galactic disc chemical evolution model, capable of following not just radial but also azimuthal inhomogeneities. The density f…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has proved to be a powerful resource for understanding the physical properties and chemical composition of star-forming galaxies in the local universe. The SDSS population of active galactic nuclei (AGN) remains as of yet less explored in this capacity. To extend the rigorous study of \ion{H}{ii} regions in the SDSS to AGN, we adapt methods for computing direct-method chemical abundances for application to the narrow-line regions (NLR) of AGN. By accounting for triply-ionized oxygen, we are able to more completely estimate the total oxygen abundance. We find…
Studying the global evolution of spiral galaxies requires determining their overall chemical compositions. However, since spirals tend to possess gradients in their chemical compositions, determining their overall chemical abundances poses a challenge. In this study, the framework for a newly proposed method for determining the overall oxygen abundance of a disk is established. By separately integrating the absolute amounts of hydrogen and oxygen out to large radii, the cumulative oxygen abundance is shown to approach an asymptotic value. In this manner, a reliable account of the overall chemi…
In this paper, we study the formation and chemical evolution of the Milky Way disc with particular focus on the abundance patterns ([$α$/Fe] vs. [Fe/H]) at different Galactocentric distances, the present-time abundance gradients along the disc and the time evolution of abundance gradients. We consider the chemical evolution models for the Galactic disc developed by Grisoni et al. (2017) for the solar neighborhood, both the two-infall and the one-infall ones, and we extend our analysis to the other Galactocentric distances. In particular, we examine the processes which mainly influence the form…
We present chemical abundance measurements for seven stars with metallicities ranging from [Fe/H] = $-$3.3 to [Fe/H] = $-$2.4 in the Tucana II ultra-faint dwarf galaxy (UFD), based on high-resolution spectra obtained with the MIKE spectrograph on the 6.5 m Magellan-Clay Telescope. For three stars, we present detailed chemical abundances for the first time. Of those, two stars are newly discovered members of Tucana II and were selected as probable members from deep narrow band photometry of the Tucana II UFD taken with the SkyMapper telescope. This result demonstrates the potential for photomet…
The first generation of metal-free (Pop III) stars are crucial for the production of heavy elements in the earliest phase of structure formation. Their mass scale can be derived from the elemental abundance pattern of extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars, which are assumed to inherit the abundances of uniformly mixed supernova (SN) ejecta. If the expanding ejecta maintains its initial stratified structure, the elemental abundance pattern of EMP stars might be different from that from uniform ejecta. In this work we perform numerical simulations of the metal enrichment from stratified ejecta for no…
In view of their nature, planetary nebulae have very short lifetimes, and the chemical abundances derived so far have a natural bias favoring younger objects. In this work, we report physical parameters and abundances for a sample of old PNe located in the galactic bulge, based on low dispersion spectroscopy secured at the SOAR telescope using the Goodman Spectrograph. The new data allow us to extend our database including older, weaker objects that are at the faint end of the planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF). The results show that the abundances of our sample are lower than those f…
We report on the result of an ongoing campaign to determine chemical abundances in extremely metal poor (EMP) turn-off (TO) stars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) low resolution spectra. This contribution focuses principally on the largest part of the sample (18 stars out of 29), observed with UVES@VLT and analyzed by means of the automatic abundance analysis code MyGIsFOS to derive atmosphere parameters and detailed compositions. The most significant findings include i) the detection of a C-rich, strongly Mg-enhanced star ([Mg/Fe]=1.45); ii) a group of Mn-rich stars ([Mn/Fe]>…
Two faces of Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus: Mining the chemical abundance space with graph attention networks
INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova(意大利国家天体物理研究所帕多瓦天文台);Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Padova(帕多瓦大学物理与天文学系);INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri(意大利国家天体物理研究所阿切特里天文台);INAF - IASF-Milano(意大利国家天体物理研究所米兰天文物理研究所);University of Birmingham(伯明翰大学);INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera(意大利国家天体物理研究所布雷拉天文台)
I would like to review recent efforts of detailed chemical abundance measurements for field Milky Way halo stars. Thanks to the advent of wide-field spectroscopic surveys up to a several kpc from the Sun, large samples of field halo stars with detailed chemical measurements are continuously expanding. Combination of the chemical information and full six dimensional phase-space information is now recognized as a powerful tool to identify cosmological accretion events that have built a sizable fraction of the present-day stellar halo. Future observational prospects with wide-field spectroscopic …
Spectroscopic observations of 32 HII regions in the spiral galaxy NGC 3963 and the barred irregular galaxy NGC 7292 were carried out with the 2.5-m telescope of the Caucasus Mountain Observatory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute using the Transient Double-beam Spectrograph with a dispersion of 1A/pixel and a spectral resolution of 3A. These observations were used to estimate the oxygen and nitrogen abundances and the electron temperatures in HII regions through modern strong-line methods. In general, the galaxies have oxygen and nitrogen abundances typical of stellar systems with similar…
The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping (OCCAM) survey aims to produce a comprehensive, uniform, infrared-based spectroscopic dataset for hundreds of open clusters, and to constrain key Galactic dynamical and chemical parameters from this sample. This second contribution from the OCCAM survey presents analysis of 259 member stars with [Fe/H] determinations in 19 open clusters, using Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 14 (SDSS/DR14) data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and ESA Gaia. This analysis, which includes clusters with R_{GC} ranging f…
We present the motivation, design and current status of the Open Cluster Chemical Abundances from Spanish Observatories survey (OCCASO). Using the high resolution spectroscopic facilities available at Spanish observatories, OCCASO will derive chemical abundances in a sample of 20 to 25 open clusters older than 0.5 Gyr. This sample will be used to study in detail the formation and evolution of the Galactic disc using open clusters as tracers.
RAVE is a spectroscopic survey of the Milky Way which collected more than 500,000 stellar spectra of nearby stars in the Galaxy. The RAVE consortium analysed these spectra to obtain radial velocities, stellar parameters and chemical abundances. These data, together with spatial and kinematic information like positions, proper motions, and distance estimations, make the RAVE database a rich source for galactic archaeology. I present recent investigations on the chemo-kinematic relations and chemical gradients in the Milky Way disk by using RAVE data and compare our results with the Besancon mod…
We present the first detailed chemical abundances for distant RR Lyrae stars members of the Virgo Stellar Stream (VSS), derived from X-Shooter medium-resolution spectra. Sixteen elements from carbon to barium have been measured in six VSS RR Lyrae stars, sampling all main nucleosynthetic channels. For the first time we will be able to compare in detail the chemical evolution of the VSS progenitor with those of Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxies (LG dSph) as well as the one of the smooth halo.
We present a simulation of the long-term evolution of a Population III supernova remnant in a cosmological minihalo. Employing passive Lagrangian tracer particles, we investigate how chemical stratification and anisotropy in the explosion can affect the abundances of the first low-mass, metal-enriched stars. We find that reverse shock heating can leave the inner mass shells at entropies too high to cool, leading to carbon-enhancement in the re-collapsing gas. This hydrodynamic selection effect could explain the observed incidence of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars at low metallicity. W…
Stellar migration is an important dynamical process in Galactic disk. Here we model the radial stellar migration in the Galactic disk with an analytical method, then add it to detailed Galactic chemical evolution model to study the influence of radial stellar migration on the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, especially for the abundance gradients. We found that the radial stellar migration in the Galactic disk can make the profile of the G-dwarf metallicity distribution of the solar neighborhood taller and narrower, thus it becomes another solution to the "G-dwarf problem". It can also sca…
The recent Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) represents an unparalleled revolution in Galactic Archaeology, providing us with numerous radial velocities chemical abundances for millions of stars, with all-sky coverage. We present a new chemical evolution model for the Galactic disc components (high- and low- $α$ sequence stars) designed to reproduce the new abundance ratios provided by the GSP-spec module for the Gaia DR3 and also constrained by the detailed star formation histories for both the thick and thin disc stars inferred from previous Gaia releases. Sophisticated modeling based on previous Ga…
This work describes a study of elemental abundances for 30 metal-poor stars whose chemical abundances provide excellent information for setting constraints on models of neutron-capture processes. Based on the abundances of main r- and weak r-process stars, the abundance patterns of main r-process and weak r-process are obtained. The two r-process component coefficients are defined to determine the relative contributions from individual neutron-capture process to abundances of metal-poor stars. Based on the component coefficients, we find that metal-poor stars BD+4 2621 and HD 4306 are also wea…
Recently revealed C, N, and O abundances in the most metal-poor damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) absorbers are compared with those of extremely metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo, as well as extragalactic H II regions, to decipher nucleosynthesis and chemical enrichment in the early Universe. These comparisons surprisingly identify a relatively high C/O ratio and a low N/O ratio in DLA systems, which is hard to explain theoretically. We propose that if these features are confirmed by future studies, this effect occurs because the initial mass function in metal-poor DLA systems has a cut-off at the …
Photoionized nebulae comprise basically HII regions and planetary nebulae, and their abundances give important clues on the nucleosynthesis and chemical evolution of their host galaxies. There is presently a large amount of data on these objects, especially for the elements He and N, which are strongly affected by the evolution of intermediate mass stars, as well as O, Ne, S, and Ar, which are essentially synthesized in stars with larger masses. The abundances of these elements in several systems in the Local Group are discussed on the basis of distance-independent correlations.
Open clusters are key chemical and age tracers of Milky Way evolution. While open clusters provide significant constraints on galaxy evolution, their use has been limited due to discrepancies in measuring abundances from different studies. We analyze medium resolution (R~19,000) CTIO/Hydra spectra of giant stars in 58 open clusters using The Cannon to determine [Fe/H], [Mg/Fe], [Si/Fe], [Al/Fe], and [O/Fe]. This work adds an additional 55 primarily southern hemisphere open clusters calibrated to the SDSS/APOGEE DR16 metallicity system. This uniform analysis is compared to previous studies [Fe/…
We have derived new abundances of the rare-earth elements Pr, Dy, Tm, Yb, and Lu for the solar photosphere and for five very metal-poor, neutron-capture r-process-rich giant stars. The photospheric values for all five elements are in good agreement with meteoritic abundances. For the low metallicity sample, these abundances have been combined with new Ce abundances from a companion paper, and reconsideration of a few other elements in individual stars, to produce internally-consistent Ba, rare-earth, and Hf (56<= Z <= 72) element distributions. These have been used in a critical comparison bet…
The chemical abundances of metal-poor stars provide a great deal of information regarding the individual nucleosynthetic processes that created the observed elements and the overall process of chemical enrichment of the galaxy since the formation of the first stars. Here we review the abundance patterns of the neutron-capture elements (Z > 38) in those metal-poor stars and our current understanding of the conditions and sites of their production at early times. We also review the relative contributions of these different processes to the build-up of these elements within the galaxy over time, …
Chemical tagging promises to use detailed abundance measurements to identify spatially separated stars that were in fact born together (in the same molecular cloud), long ago. This idea has not yielded much practical success, presumably because of the noise and incompleteness in chemical-abundance measurements. We have succeeded in substantially improving spectroscopic measurements with The Cannon, which has now delivered 15 individual abundances for ~100,000 stars observed as part of the APOGEE spectroscopic survey, with precisions around 0.04 dex. We test the chemical-tagging hypothesis by l…
Metal-poor components of dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way could be remnants of the building blocks of the Galactic halo structure. Low-mass stars that are currently observed as metal-poor stars are expected to have formed in chemically homogeneous clusters in the early phases of galaxy formation. They should have already disintegrated and should exhibit large scatter in abundance ratios of some sets of elements (e.g., Sr/Ba) in the Milky Way field stars. However, chemical abundance ratios are expected to cluster in very metal-poor stars in dwarf galaxies because the number of clusters forme…
Silicon and Strontium are key elements to explore the nucleosynthesis and chemical evolution of the Galaxy by measurements of very metal-poor stars. There are, however, only a few useful spectral lines of these elements in the optical range that are measurable for such low-metallicity stars. Here we report on abundances of these two elements determined from near-infrared high-resolution spectra obtained with the Subaru Telescope Infrared Doppler instrument (IRD). Si abundances are determined for as many as 26 Si lines for six very and extremely metal-poor stars (-4.0<[Fe/H]<-1.5), which signif…
Abundance observations indicate the presence of rapid-neutron capture (i.e., r-process) elements in old Galactic halo and globular cluster stars. Recent observations of the r-process-enriched star BD +17 3248 include new abundance determinations for the neutron-capture elements Cd I (Z=48), Lu II (Z = 71) and Os II (Z = 76), the first detections of these elements in metal-poor r-process-enriched halo stars. Combining these and previous observations, we have now detected 32 n-capture elements in BD +17 3248. This is the most of any metal-poor halo star to date. For the most r-process-rich (i.e.…
(Abridged) We present the abundance analysis of 12 PNe ionized by [WC]-type stars and wels obtained from high-resolution spectrophotometric data. Our main aims are to determine the chemical composition of the PNe and to study the behaviour of the abundance discrepancy problem (ADF) in this type of planetary nebulae. The detection of a large number of optical recombination lines (ORLs) and collisionally excited lines (CELs) from different ions were presented previously. Most of the ORLs were reported for the first time in these PNe. Ionic abundances were derived from the available CELs and ORLs…
Reconstructing the chemical evolution of the Milky Way is crucial for understanding the formation of stars, planets, and galaxies throughout cosmic time. Different studies associated with element production in the early universe and how elements are incorporated into gas and stars are necessary to piece together how the elements evolved. These include establishing chemical abundance trends, as set by metal-poor stars, comparing nucleosynthesis yield predictions with stellar abundance data, and theoretical modeling of chemical evolution. To aid these studies, we have collected chemical abundanc…
Planetary nebulae are the products of the evolution of low and intermediate mass stars. The chemical property studies of these objects give important information about the elemental abundances as He, O, Ne, Ar, S and their modifications associated with the evolution of the progenitor stars. The determination of accurate abundances in planetary nebulae is important from the perspective of the stellar evolution as well as the formation and chemical evolution of galaxies. Recently, new HeI emissivities and ionization correction factors (ICFs) were published in the literature. In this work, these …
We present a review on the determination of the primordial helium abundance Yp, based on the study of hydrogen and helium recombination lines in extragalactic HII regions. We also discuss the observational determinations of the increase of helium to the increase of oxygen by mass Delta Y / Delta O, and compare them with predictions based on models of galactic chemical evolution.
The isotope abundances provide powerful diagnostics of the chemical enrichment in our Galaxy. The star HD 140283 is one of the best-studied very metal-poor dwarf stars. It is very old, and the chemical abundance in this star is a good witness of the chemical composition of the matter in the early Galaxy. The aim of this work is to measure the precise abundances of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and mainly the 12C/13C isotopic ratio in this very old metal-poor star in order to have a good reference for the computations of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. We used very high spectral resolution da…
LTE abundances of light elements in extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars have been previously derived from high quality spectra. New derivations, free from the NLTE effects, will better constrain the models of the Galactic chemical evolution and the yields of the very first supernovae. The NLTE profiles of the magnesium and potassium lines have been computed in a sample of 53 extremely metal-poor stars with a modified version of the program MULTI and adjusted to the observed lines in order to derive the abundances of these elements. The NLTE corrections for magnesium and potassium are in good agre…
Unevolved metal poor stars are the witness of the early evolution of the Galaxy. The determination of their detailed chemical composition is an important tool to understand the chemical history of our Galaxy. The study of their chemical composition can also be used to constrain the nucleosynthesis of the first generation of supernovae that enriched the interstellar medium. The aim is to observe a sample of extremely metal poor stars (EMP stars) candidates selected from SDSS DR12 release and determine their chemical composition. We obtained high resolution spectra of a sample of five stars usin…
We have performed a differential, line-by-line, chemical abundance analysis, ultimately relative to the Sun, of nine very metal-poor main sequence halo stars, near [Fe/H]=$-$2 dex. Our abundances range from $-2.66\leq\mathrm{[Fe/H]}\leq-1.40$ dex with conservative uncertainties of 0.07 dex. We find an average [$α$/Fe]$=0.34\pm0.09$ dex, typical of the Milky Way. While our spectroscopic atmosphere parameters provide good agreement with HST parallaxes, there is significant disagreement with temperature and gravity parameters indicated by observed colors and theoretical isochrones. Although a sys…
Cowan et al. (2021) review how roughly half the elements heavier than iron found in the Sun are produced by rapid neutron capture and half by slow neutron capture, the r- and s-processes. In the Sun, their relative contribution to individual elemental abundances is well understood, except for the lightest and heaviest elements beyond iron. Their contributions are especially uncertain for the heaviest non-radioactive element, lead (Pb, Z=82). This is constrained by deriving lead abundances in metal-poor stars. For in the most metal-poor halo stars, strontium and heavier elements are found in th…
High-resolution H-band spectra of five bright field K, M, and MS giants, obtained from the archives of the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), are analyzed to determine chemical abundances of 16 elements. The abundances were derived via spectrum synthesis using the detailed linelist prepared for the SDSS III Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), which is a high-resolution near-infrared spectroscopic survey to derive detailed chemical abundance distributions and precise radial velocities for 100,000 red giants sampling all Galactic stellar …
The most metal-poor stars in dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) can show the nucleosynthetic patterns of one or a few supernovae. These supernovae could have zero metallicity, making metal-poor dSph stars the closest surviving links to Population III stars. Metal-poor dSph stars also help to reveal the formation mechanism of the Milky Way halo. We present the detailed abundances from Keck/HIRES spectroscopy for two very metal-poor stars in two Milky Way dSphs. One star, in the Sculptor dSph, has [Fe I/H] = -2.40. The other star, in the Ursa Minor dSph, has [Fe I/H] = -3.16. Both stars fall in t…
We present a detailed abundance analysis of the bright (V = 9.02), metal-poor ([Fe/H] = -1.47 +/- 0.08) field red horizontal-branch star HD 222925, which was observed as part of an ongoing survey by the R-Process Alliance. We calculate stellar parameters and derive abundances for 46 elements based on 901 lines examined in a high-resolution optical spectrum obtained using the Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle spectrograph. We detect 28 elements with 38 <= Z <= 90; their abundance pattern is a close match to the Solar r-process component. The distinguishing characteristic of HD 222925 is an extre…
We have observed 15 red giant stars in the relatively massive, metal-poor globular cluster NGC 4833 using the Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle spectrograph at Magellan. We calculate stellar parameters for each star and perform a standard abundance analysis to derive abundances of 43 species of 39 elements, including 20 elements heavier than the iron group. We derive <[Fe/H]> = -2.25 +/- 0.02 from Fe I lines and <[Fe/H> = -2.19 +/- 0.013 from Fe II lines. We confirm earlier results that found no internal metallicity spread in NGC 4833, and there are no significant star-to-star abundance dispers…
Carbon-enhanced metal poor stars (CEMP) form a significant proportion of the metal-poor stars, their origin is not well understood. Three very metal-poor C-rich turnoff stars were selected from the SDSS survey, observed with the ESO VLT (UVES) to precisely determine the element abundances. In turnoff stars (unlike giants) the carbon abundance has not been affected by mixing with deep layers and is therefore easier to interpret. The analysis was performed with 1D LTE static model atmospheres. When available, non-LTE corrections were applied to the classical LTE abundances. The 3D effects on the…
We report the detection of an Al II line at 2669.155 Angstroms in 11 metal-poor stars, using ultraviolet spectra obtained with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope. We derive Al abundances from this line using a standard abundance analysis, assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). The mean [Al/Fe] ratio is -0.06 +/- 0.04 (sigma = 0.22) for these 11 stars spanning -3.9 < [Fe/H] < -1.3, or [Al/Fe] = -0.10 +/- 0.04 (sigma = 0.18) for 9 stars spanning -3.0 < [Fe/H] < -1.3 if two carbon-enhanced stars are excluded. We use these abundances to perform an…
In the era of industrial Galactic astronomy and multi-object spectroscopic stellar surveys, the sample sizes and the number of available stellar chemical abundances have reached dimensions in which it has become difficult to process all the available information in an effective manner. In this paper we demonstrate the use of a dimensionality-reduction technique (t-distributed stochastic neighbour embedding; t-SNE) for analysing the stellar abundance-space distribution. While the non-parametric non-linear behaviour of this technique makes it difficult to estimate the significance of found abund…
We investigate the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) analysis for \ion{Cu}{1} lines with the updated model atom that includes quantum-mechanical rate coefficients of Cu\,$+$\,H and Cu$^+$\,$+$\,H$^-$ inelastic collisions from the recent study of Belyaev et al. (2021). The influence of these data on NLTE abundance determinations has been performed for six metal-poor stars in a metallicity range of $-$2.59\,dex$\,\le$\,[Fe/H]\,$\le$\,$-$0.95\,dex. For \ion{Cu}{1} lines, the application of accurate atomic data leads to a decrease in the departure from LTE and lower copper abundances comp…
Recent radiative lifetime measurements accurate to +/- 5% using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) on 43 even-parity and 15 odd-parity levels of Ce II have been combined with new branching fractions measured using a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) to determine transition probabilities for 921 lines of Ce II. This improved laboratory data set has been used to determine a new solar photospheric Ce abundance, log epsilon = 1.61 +/- 0.01 (sigma = 0.06 from 45 lines), a value in excellent agreement with the recommended meteoritic abundance, log epsilon = 1.61 +/- 0.02. Revised Ce abundances have…
Multiple stellar populations in the Milky Way globular clusters manifest themselves with a large variety. Although chemical abundance variations in light elements, including He, are ubiquitous, the amount of these variations is different in different globulars. Stellar populations with distinct Fe, C+N+O and slow-neutron capture elements have been now detected in some globular clusters, whose number will likely increase. All these chemical features correspond to specific photometric patterns. I review the chemical+photometric features of the multiple stellar populations in globular clusters an…
Context. The APOGEE survey has obtained high-resolution infrared spectra of more than 100,000 stars. Deriving chemical abundances patterns of these stars is paramount to piecing together the structure of the Milky Way. While the derived chemical abundances have been shown to be precise for most stars, some calibration problems have been reported, in particular for more metal- poor stars. Aims. In this paper, we aim to (1) re-determine the chemical abundances of the APOGEE+Kepler stellar sample (APOKASC) with an independent procedure, line list and line selection, and high quality surface gravi…
Abundances of beryllium in metal-poor stars scale linearly with metallicity down to [Fe/H] ~ -3.0. In the stars where Be has been detected at this extremely metal-poor regime, an increased abundance scatter has been previously reported. This scatter could indicate a flattening of the relation between Be and [Fe/H]. Our aim is to perform a new investigation of Be abundances in extremely metal-poor stars and try to clarify whether a Be abundance plateau exists. We revisited the Be abundances in a sample of nine dwarfs with [Fe/H] ~ -3.0. Additionally, we analysed the Be lines in the spectra of s…
We present elemental abundances for all seven stars in Moving Group W11450 (Latham 1) to determine if they may be chemically related. These stars appear to be both spatially and kinematically related, but no spectroscopic abundance analysis exists in literature. Abundances for eight elements were derived via equivalent width analyses of high resolution (R $\sim$60,000), high signal-to-noise ratio ($\langle$SNR$\rangle\sim$100) spectra obtained with the Otto Struve 2.1m telescope and Sandiford Echelle Spectrograph at McDonald Observatory. The large star-to-star scatter in metallicity, -0.55 $\l…
The chemical separation of Li+ ions induced by a magnetic field during the hierarchical structure formation can reduce initial Li abundances in cosmic structures. It is shown that cosmological reionization of neutral Li atoms quickly completes as soon as the first star is formed. Since almost all Li is singly ionized during the main course of structure formation, it can efficiently separate from gravitationally collapsing neutral gas. The separation is more efficient in smaller structures which formed earlier. In the framework of the hierarchical structure formation, extremely metal-poor stars…