No Arabic abstract
(Abridged) Carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars in the halo components of the Milky Way are explored, based on accurate determinations of the carbon-to-iron ([C/Fe]) abundance ratios and kinematic quantities for over 30000 calibration stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Using our present criterion that low-metallicity stars exhibiting [C/Fe] ratios (carbonicity) in excess of [C/Fe]$ = +0.7$ are considered CEMP stars, the global frequency of CEMP stars in the halo system for feh $< -1.5$ is 8%; for feh $< -2.0$ it is 12%; for feh $<-2.5$ it is 20%. We also confirm a significant increase in the level of carbon enrichment with declining metallicity, growing from $<$[C/Fe]$>$ $sim +1.0$ at feh $= -1.5$ to $<$[C/Fe]$>$ $sim +1.7$ at feh $= -2.7$. The nature of the carbonicity distribution function (CarDF) changes dramatically with increasing distance above the Galactic plane, $|$Z$|$. For $|$Z$|$ $< 5$ kpc, relatively few CEMP stars are identified. For distances $|$Z$|$ $> 5$ kpc, the CarDF exhibits a strong tail towards high values, up to [C/Fe] $>$ +3.0. We also find a clear increase in the CEMP frequency with $|$Z$|$. For stars with $-2.0 <$ [Fe/H] $< -$1.5, the frequency grows from 5% at $|$Z$|$ $sim 2$ kpc to 10% at $|$Z$|$ $sim 10$ kpc. For stars with [Fe/H] $< -$2.0, the frequency grows from 8% at $|$Z$|$ $sim 2$ kpc to 25% at $|$Z$|$ $sim 10$ kpc. For stars with $-2.0 <$ [Fe/H] $< -$1.5, the mean carbonicity is $<$[C/Fe]$>$ $sim +1.0$ for 0 kpc $<$ $|$Z$|$ $<$ 10 kpc, with little dependence on $|$Z$|$; for [Fe/H] $< -$2.0, $<$[C/Fe]$>$ $sim +1.5$, again roughly independent of $|$Z$|$.
We explore the kinematics and orbital properties of a sample of 323 very metal-poor stars in the halo system of the Milky Way, selected from the high-resolution spectroscopic follow-up studies of Aoki et al. and Yong et al. The combined sample contains a significant fraction of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars (22% or 29%, depending on whether a strict or relaxed criterion is applied for this definition). Barium abundances (or upper limits) are available for the great majority of the CEMP stars, allowing for their separation into the CEMP-$s$ and CEMP-no sub-classes. A new method to assign membership to the inner- and outer-halo populations of the Milky Way is developed, making use of the integrals of motion, and applied to determine the relative fractions of CEMP stars in these two sub-classes for each halo component. Although limited by small-number statistics, the data suggest that the inner halo of the Milky Way exhibits a somewhat higher relative number of CEMP-$s$ stars than CEMP-no stars (57% vs. 43%), while the outer halo possesses a clearly higher fraction of CEMP-no stars than CEMP-$s$ stars (70% vs. 30%). Although larger samples of CEMP stars with known Ba abundances are required, this result suggests that the dominant progenitors of CEMP stars in the two halo components were different; massive stars for the outer halo, and intermediate-mass stars in the case of the inner halo.
We present a chemo-dynamical analysis of low-resolution ($R sim 1300$) spectroscopy of stars from the AAOmega Evolution of Galactic Structure (AEGIS) survey, focusing on two key populations of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars within the disk system of the Milky Way: a mildly prograde population ($L_z < 1000,$kpc$,$km$,$s$^{-1}$) and a strongly prograde ($L_z > 1000,$kpc$,$km$,$s$^{-1}$) population. Based on their chemical and kinematic characteristics, and on comparisons with similar populations found in the recent literature, we tentatively associate the former with an ex-situ inner-halo population originating from either the $Gaia$ Sausage or $Gaia$-Enceladus. The latter population is linked to the metal-weak thick-disk (MWTD). We discuss their implications in the context of the formation history of the Milky Way.
We present chemical abundances of 57 metal-poor stars that are likely constituents of the outer stellar halo in the Milky Way. Almost all of the sample stars have an orbit reaching a maximum vertical distance (Z_max) of >5 kpc above and below the Galactic plane. High-resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra for the sample stars obtained with Subaru/HDS are used to derive chemical abundances of Na, Mg, Ca, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Zn, Y and Ba with an LTE abundance analysis code. The resulting abundance data are combined with those presented in literature that mostly targeted at smaller Z_max stars, and both data are used to investigate any systematic trends in detailed abundance patterns depending on their kinematics. It is shown that, in the metallicity range of -2<[Fe/H]<-1, the [Mg/Fe] ratios for the stars with Z_max>5 kpc are systematically lower (~0.1 dex) than those with smaller Z_max. This result of the lower [alpha/Fe] for the assumed outer halo stars is consistent with previous studies that found a signature of lower [alpha/Fe] ratios for stars with extreme kinematics. A distribution of the [Mg/Fe] ratios for the outer halo stars partly overlaps with that for stars belonging to the Milky Way dwarf satellites in the metallicity interval of -2<[Fe/H]<-1 and spans a range intermediate between the distributions for the inner halo stars and the stars belonging to the satellites. Our results confirm inhomogeneous nature of chemical abundances within the Milky Way stellar halo depending on kinematic properties of constituent stars as suggested by earlier studies. Possible implications for the formation of the Milky Way halo and its relevance to the suggested dual nature of the halo are discussed.
The most metal-deficient stars hold important clues about the early build-up and chemical evolution of the Milky Way, and carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars are of special interest. However, little is known about CEMP stars in the Galactic bulge. In this paper, we use the large spectroscopic sample of metal-poor stars from the Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) to identify CEMP stars ([C/Fe] > +0.7) in the bulge region and to derive a CEMP fraction. We identify 96 new CEMP stars in the inner Galaxy, of which 62 are very metal-poor ([Fe/H] < -2.0); this is more than a ten-fold increase compared to the seven previously known bulge CEMP stars. The cumulative fraction of CEMP stars in PIGS is $42^{,+14,}_{,-13} %$ for stars with [Fe/H] < -3.0, and decreases to $16^{,+3,}_{,-3} %$ for [Fe/H] < -2.5 and $5.7^{,+0.6,}_{,-0.5} %$ for [Fe/H] < -2.0. The PIGS inner Galaxy CEMP fraction for [Fe/H] < -3.0 is consistent with the halo fraction found in the literature, but at higher metallicities the PIGS fraction is substantially lower. While this can partly be attributed to a photometric selection bias, such bias is unlikely to fully explain the low CEMP fraction at higher metallicities. Considering the typical carbon excesses and metallicity ranges for halo CEMP-s and CEMP-no stars, our results point to a possible deficiency of both CEMP-s and CEMP-no stars (especially the more metal-rich) in the inner Galaxy. The former is potentially related to a difference in the binary fraction, whereas the latter may be the result of a fast chemical enrichment in the early building blocks of the inner Galaxy.
Stars with higher aluminum and nitrogen enrichment are often the key pieces for the chemical makeup of multiple populations in almost all globular clusters (GCs). There is also compelling observational evidence that some Galactic components could be partially built from dissipated GCs. Thus, the identification of such kinds of stars among metal-poor field stars may provide insights on the composite nature of the Milky Way (MW) bulge and inner stellar halo, as well as reveal other chemical peculiarities. Here, based on APOGEE spectra, we report the discovery of 29 mildly metal-poor ([Fe/H]$lesssim-0.7$) stars with stellar atmospheres strongly enriched in aluminum (Al-rich stars: [Al/Fe]$gtrsim+0.5$), well above the typical Galactic levels, located within the Solar radius toward the bulge region, which lies in highly eccentric orbits ($egtrsim0.6$). We find many similarities for almost all of the chemical species measured in this work with the chemical patterns of GCs, so we conjecture that they have likely been dynamically ejected into the bulge and inner halo from GCs formed in situ and/or GC formed in different progenitors of known merger events experienced by the MW, such as the textit{Gaia}-Sausage-Enceladus and/or Sequoia.