Spectroscopic Study on the Beryllium Abundances of Red Giant Stars

An extensive spectroscopic study was carried out for the beryllium abundances of 200 red giants (mostly of late G and early K type), which were determined from the near-UV Be II 3131.066 line based on high-dispersion spectra obtained by Subaru/HDS, with an aim of investigating the nature of surface Be contents in these evolved giants; e.g., dependence upon stellar parameters, degree of peculiarity along with its origin and build-up timing. We found that Be is considerably deficient (to widely different degree from star to star) in the photosphere of these evolved giants by ~1-3 dex (or more) compared to the initial abundance. While the resulting Be abundances (A(Be)) appear to weakly depend upon T_eff, log g, [Fe/H], M, age, and v_sin i, this may be attributed to the metallicity dependence of A(Be) coupled with the mutual correlation between these stellar parameters, since such tendencies almost disappear in the metallicity-scaled Be abundance ([Be/Fe]). By comparing the Be abundances (as well as their correlations with Li and C) to the recent theoretical predictions based on sophisticated stellar evolution calculations, we concluded that such a considerable extent/diversity of Be deficit is difficult to explain only by the standard theory of first dredge-up in the envelope of red giants, and that some extra mixing process (such as rotational or thermohaline mixing) must be responsible, which presumably starts to operate already in the main-sequence phase. This view is supported by the fact that appreciable Be depletion is seen in less evolved intermediate-mass B-A type stars near to the main sequence.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Publ. Astron. Soc. Japa

Behavior of [S/Fe] in Very Metal-Poor Stars from the S I 1.046 micron Lines Revisited

With an aim of establishing how the [S/Fe] ratios behave at the very low metallicity regime down to [Fe/H] ~ -3, we conducted a non-LTE analysis of near-IR S ~ {\sc i} triplet lines (multiplet 3) at 10455-10459 A for a dozen of very metal-poor stars (-3.2 <[Fe/H] < -1.9) based on the new observational data obtained with IRCS+AO188 of the Subaru Telescope. It turned out that the resulting [S/Fe] values are only moderately supersolar at [S/Fe] ~ +0.2-0.5 irrespective of the metallicity. While this "flat" tendency is consistent with the trend recently corroborated by Spite et al. (2011, A&A, 528, A9) based on the S I 9212/9228/9237 lines (multiplet 1), it disaffirms the possibility of conspicuously large [S/Fe] (up to ~+0.8) at [Fe/H] ~ -3 that we once suggested in our first report on the S abundances of disk/halo stars using S I 10455-10459 lines (Takeda & Takada-Hidai 2011, PASJ, 63, S537). Given these new observational facts, we withdraw our previous argument, since we consider that [S/Fe]'s of some most metal-poor objects were overestimated in that paper; the likely cause for this failure is also discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ, Vol. 64, No. 3 (2012