293 research outputs found
A holistic approach to carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars
By considering the various CEMP subclasses separately, we try to derive, from
the specific signatures imprinted on the abundances, parameters (such as
metallicity, mass, temperature, and neutron source) characterizing AGB
nucleosynthesis from the specific signatures imprinted on the abundances, and
separate them from the impact of thermohaline mixing, first dredge-up, and
dilution associated with the mass transfer from the companion.To put CEMP stars
in a broad context, we collect abundances for about 180 stars of various
metallicities, luminosity classes, and abundance patterns, from our own sample
and from literature. First, we show that there are CEMP stars which share the
properties of CEMP-s stars and CEMP-no stars (which we call CEMP-low-s stars).
We also show that there is a strong correlation between Ba and C abundances in
the s-only CEMP stars. This strongly points at the operation of the 13C neutron
source in low-mass AGB stars. For the CEMP-rs stars (seemingly enriched with
elements from both the s- and r-processes), the correlation of the N abundances
with abundances of heavy elements from the 2nd and 3rd s-process peaks bears
instead the signature of the 22Ne neutron source. Adding the fact that CEMP-rs
stars exhibit O and Mg enhancements, we conclude that extremely hot conditions
prevailed during the thermal pulses of the contaminating AGB stars. Finally, we
argue that most CEMP-no stars (with no overabundances for the neutron-capture
elements) are likely the extremely metal-poor counterparts of CEMP
neutron-capture-rich stars. We also show that the C enhancement in CEMP-no
stars declines with metallicity at extremely low metallicity ([Fe/H]~< -3.2).
This trend is not predicted by any of the current AGB models.Comment: 27 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Galactic abundance gradients from Cepheids : On the iron abundance gradient around 10-12 kpc
Context: Classical Cepheids can be adopted to trace the chemical evolution of
the Galactic disk since their distances can be estimated with very high
accuracy. Aims: Homogeneous iron abundance measurements for 33 Galactic
Cepheids located in the outer disk together with accurate distance
determinations based on near-infrared photometry are adopted to constrain the
Galactic iron gradient beyond 10 kpc. Methods: Iron abundances were determined
using high resolution Cepheid spectra collected with three different
observational instruments: ESPaDOnS@CFHT, Narval@TBL and [email protected] ESO/MPG
telescope. Cepheid distances were estimated using near-infrared (J,H,K-band)
period-luminosity relations and data from SAAO and the 2MASS catalog. Results:
The least squares solution over the entire data set indicates that the iron
gradient in the Galactic disk presents a slope of -0.052+/-0.003 dex/kpc in the
5-17 kpc range. However, the change of the iron abundance across the disk seems
to be better described by a linear regime inside the solar circle and a
flattening of the gradient toward the outer disk (beyond 10 kpc). In the latter
region the iron gradient presents a shallower slope, i.e. -0.012+/-0.014
dex/kpc. In the outer disk (10-12 kpc) we also found that Cepheids present an
increase in the spread in iron abundance. Current evidence indicates that the
spread in metallicity depends on the Galactocentric longitude. Finally, current
data do not support the hypothesis of a discontinuity in the iron gradient at
Galactocentric distances of 10-12 kpc. Conclusions: The occurrence of a spread
in iron abundance as a function of the Galactocentric longitude indicates that
linear radial gradients should be cautiously treated to constrain the chemical
evolution across the disk.Comment: 5 tables, 8 figures, Accepted in A&
Evolution of Li, Be and B in the Galaxy
In this paper we study the production of Li, Be and B nuclei by Galactic
cosmic ray spallation processes. We include three kinds of processes: (i)
spallation by light cosmic rays impinging on interstellar CNO nuclei (direct
processes); (ii) spallation by CNO cosmic ray nuclei impinging on interstellar
p and 4He (inverse processes); and (iii) alpha-alpha fusion reactions. The
latter dominate the production of 6Li and 7Li. We calculate production rates
for a closed-box Galactic model, verifying the quadratic dependence of the Be
and B abundances for low values of Z. These are quite general results and are
known to disagree with observations. We then show that the multi-zone
multi-population model we used previously for other aspects of Galactic
evolution produces quite good agreement with the linear trend observed at low
metallicities without fine tuning. We argue that reported discrepancies between
theory and observations do not represent a nucleosynthetic problem, but instead
are the consequences of inaccurate treatments of Galactic evolution.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX. The Astrophysical Journal, in pres
Element abundances of unevolved stars in the open cluster M 67
We determined the metallicity ([Fe/H]), together with O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca,
Ti, Cr and Ni abundances for a sample of 10 unevolved or slightly evolved stars
belonging to the open cluster M 67. We find an average metallicity [Fe/H]=0.03
+/- 0.01, in very good agreement with previous determinations. All the [X/Fe]
abundance ratios are very close to solar. The star-to-star scatter in [Fe/H]
and [X/Fe] ratios for all elements, including oxygen, is lower than 0.05 dex,
implying that the large dispersion in lithium reported in previous studies is
not due to differences in these element abundances. We also find that, when
using a homogeneous scale, the abundance pattern of unevolved stars in our
sample is very similar to that of evolved stars, suggesting that, at least in
this cluster, RGB and clump stars have not undergone any chemical processing.
Finally, our results show that M 67 has a chemical composition that is
representative of the solar neighborhood.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&
A VLT-UVES spectrscopic analysis of C-rich Fe-poor stars
Large surveys of very metal-poor stars have revealed in recent years that a
large fraction of these objects were carbon-rich, analogous to the more
metal-rich CH-stars. The abundance peculiarities of CH-stars are commonly
explained by mass-transfer from a more evolved companion. In an effort to
better understand the origin and importance for Galactic evolution of Fe-poor,
C-rich stars, we present abundances determined from high-resolution and high
signal-to-noise spectra obtained with the UVES instrument attached to the
ESO/VLT. Our analysis of carbon-enhanced objects includes both CH stars and
more metal-poor objects, and we explore the link between the two classes. We
also present preliminary results of our ongoing radial velocity monitoring.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, presented at Cool Stars 13, Hamburg, 200
A Complexity Measure for Continuous Time Quantum Algorithms
We consider unitary dynamical evolutions on n qubits caused by time dependent
pair-interaction Hamiltonians and show that the running time of a parallelized
two-qubit gate network simulating the evolution is given by the time integral
over the chromatic index of the interaction graph. This defines a complexity
measure of continuous and discrete quantum algorithms which are in exact
one-to-one correspondence. Furthermore we prove a lower bound on the growth of
large-scale entanglement depending on the chromatic index.Comment: 6 pages, Revte
On the metallicity distribution of classical Cepheids in the Galactic inner disk
We present homogeneous and accurate iron abundances for almost four dozen
(47) of Galactic Cepheids using high-spectral resolution (R40,000) high
signal-to-noise ratio (S/N 100) optical spectra collected with UVES at
VLT. A significant fraction of the sample (32) is located in the inner disk (RG
6.9 kpc) and for half of them we provide new iron abundances. Current
findings indicate a steady increase in iron abundance when approaching the
innermost regions of the thin disk. The metallicity is super-solar and ranges
from 0.2 dex for RG 6.5 kpc to 0.4 dex for RG 5.5 kpc. Moreover,
we do not find evidence of correlation between iron abundance and distance from
the Galactic plane. We collected similar data available in the literature and
ended up with a sample of 420 Cepheids. Current data suggest that the mean
metallicity and the metallicity dispersion in the four quadrants of the
Galactic disk attain similar values. The first-second quadrants show a more
extended metal-poor tail, while the third-fourth quadrants show a more extended
metal-rich tail, but the bulk of the sample is at solar iron abundance.
Finally, we found a significant difference between the iron abundance of
Cepheids located close to the edge of the inner disk ([Fe/H]0.4) and
young stars located either along the Galactic bar or in the nuclear bulge
([Fe/H]0). Thus suggesting that the above regions have had different
chemical enrichment histories. The same outcome applies to the metallicity
gradient of the Galactic bulge, since mounting empirical evidence indicates
that the mean metallicity increases when moving from the outer to the inner
bulge regions.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; Corrected typos, corrected Table
Optimized time-dependent perturbation theory for pulse-driven quantum dynamics in atomic or molecular systems
We present a time-dependent perturbative approach adapted to the treatment of
intense pulsed interactions. We show there is a freedom in choosing secular
terms and use it to optimize the accuracy of the approximation. We apply this
formulation to a unitary superconvergent technique and improve the accuracy by
several orders of magnitude with respect to the Magnus expansion.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
UVES Be observations of early-G dwarfs in old clusters
We have obtained the first beryllium measurements of late F/early G-type
stars in the old open cluster M67 (4.5 Gyr) and in the intermediate age cluster
IC 4651 (1.7 Gyr). One member of the young cluster IC 2391 (~50 Myr) was also
observed. Our sample stars have effective temperatures within a range of +30 -
+380 K from the solar temperature. All our sample stars, including the Sun and
the young cluster star have, within the errors, the same Be abundance. This
result implies that late F/early G-type stars undergo very little (if any) Be
depletion during their main-sequence life-time. Since these stars have
undergone some Li depletion, our finding is indicative of shallow mixing, i.e.
of a mixing process that can transport surface material deep enough for Li
burning to occur, but not deep enough for Be burning. As shown in previous
studies, the Li vs. Be diagram is a powerful diagnostic of stellar interiors.
In this context, we do not find any evidence of correlated Li and Be depletion;
furthermore, a comparison with various models shows that the Be pattern of our
sample stars is compatible only with models including gravity waves. This class
of models, however, cannot reproduce the Li observations of M 67.Comment: to appear in A&
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