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Register a new userBinary properties of CH and Carbon-Enhanced Metal-Poor stars
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The HERMES spectrograph installed on the 1.2-m Mercator telescope has been used to monitor the radial velocity of 13 low-metallicity carbon stars, among which 7 Carbon-Enhanced Metal-Poor (CEMP) stars and 6 CH stars. All stars but one show clear evidence for binarity. New orbits are obtained for 8 systems. The sample covers an extended range in orbital periods, extending from 3.4 d (for the dwarf carbon star HE 0024-2523) to about 54 yr (for the CH star HD 26, the longest known among barium, CH and extrinsic S stars). Three systems exhibit low-amplitude velocity variations with periods close to 1 yr superimposed on a long-term trend. In the absence of an accurate photometric monitoring of these systems, it is not clear yet whether these variations are the signature of a very low-mass companion, or of regular envelope pulsations. The period - eccentricity (P - e) diagram for the 40 low-metallicity carbon stars with orbits now available shows no difference between CH and CEMP-s stars (the latter corresponding to those CEMP stars enriched in s-process elements, as are CH stars). We suggest that they must be considered as one and the same family and that their different names only stem from historical reasons. Indeed, these two families have as well very similar mass-function distributions, corresponding to companions with masses in the range 0.5 - 0.7 Msun, indicative of white-dwarf companions, adopting 0.8 - 0.9 Msun for the primary component. This result confirms that CH and CEMP-s stars obey the same mass-transfer scenario as their higher-metallicity analogs, the barium stars. The P - e diagrams of barium, CH and CEMP-s stars are indeed very similar. They reveal two different groups of systems: one with short orbital periods (P < 1000 d) and mostly circular or almost circular orbits, and another with longer-period and eccentric (e > 0.1) orbits.
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The carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars constitute approximately one fifth of the metal-poor ([Fe/H] ~< -2) population but their origin is not well understood. The most widely accepted formation scenario, invokes mass-transfer of carbon-rich material from a thermally-pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TPAGB) primary star to a less massive main-sequence companion which is seen today. Recent studies explore the possibility that an initial mass function biased toward intermediate-mass stars is required to reproduce the observed CEMP fraction in stars with metallicity [Fe/H] < -2.5. These models also implicitly predict a large number of nitrogen-enhanced metal-poor (NEMP) stars which is not seen. We investigate whether the observed CEMP and NEMP to extremely metal-poor (EMP) ratios can be explained without invoking a change in the initial mass function. We confirm earlier findings that with current detailed TPAGB models the large observed CEMP fraction cannot be accounted for. We find that efficient third dredge up in low-mass (less than 1.25Msun), low-metallicity stars may offer at least a partial explanation to the large observed CEMP fraction while remaining consistent with the small observed NEMP fraction.
The stellar population in the Galactic halo is characterised by a large fraction of CEMP stars. Most CEMP stars are enriched in $s$-elements (CEMP-$s$ stars), and some of these are also enriched in $r$-elements (CEMP-$s/r$ stars). One formation scenario proposed for CEMP stars invokes wind mass transfer in the past from a TP-AGB primary star to a less massive companion star which is presently observed. We generate low-metallicity populations of binary stars to reproduce the observed CEMP-star fraction. In addition, we aim to constrain our wind mass-transfer model and investigate under which conditions our synthetic populations reproduce observed abundance distributions. We compare the CEMP fractions and the abundance distributions determined from our synthetic populations with observations. Several physical parameters of the binary stellar population of the halo are uncertain, e.g. the initial mass function, the mass-ratio and orbital-period distributions, and the binary fraction. We vary the assumptions in our model about these parameters, as well as the wind mass-transfer process, and study the consequent variations of our synthetic CEMP population. The CEMP fractions calculated in our synthetic populations vary between 7% and 17%, a range consistent with the CEMP fractions among very metal-poor stars recently derived from the SDSS/SEGUE data sample. The results of our comparison between the modelled and observed abundance distributions are different for CEMP-$s/r$ stars and for CEMP-$s$ stars. For the latter, our simulations qualitatively reproduce the observed distributions of C, Na, Sr, Ba, Eu, and Pb. Contrarily, for CEMP-$s/r$ stars our model cannot reproduce the large abundances of neutron-rich elements such as Ba, Eu, and Pb. This result is consistent with previous studies, and suggests that CEMP-$s/r$ stars experienced a different nucleosynthesis history to CEMP-$s$ stars.
A substantial fraction of the lowest metallicity stars show very high enhancements in carbon. It is debated whether these enhancements reflect the stars birth composition, or if their atmospheres were subsequently polluted, most likely by accretion from an AGB binary companion. Here we investigate and compare the binary properties of three carbon-enhanced sub-classes: The metal-poor CEMP-s stars that are additionally enhanced in barium; the higher metallicity (sg)CH- and Ba II stars also enhanced in barium; and the metal-poor CEMP-no stars, not enhanced in barium. Through comparison with simulations, we demonstrate that all barium-enhanced populations are best represented by a ~100% binary fraction with a shorter period distribution of at maximum ~20,000 days. This result greatly strengthens the hypothesis that a similar binary mass transfer origin is responsible for their chemical patterns. For the CEMP-no group we present new radial velocity data from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope for 15 stars to supplement the scarce literature data. Two of these stars show indisputable signatures of binarity. The complete CEMP-no dataset is clearly inconsistent with the binary properties of the CEMP-s class, thereby strongly indicating a different physical origin of their carbon enhancements. The CEMP-no binary fraction is still poorly constrained, but the population resembles more the binary properties in the Solar Neighbourhood.
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.
A super-solar fluorine abundance was observed in the carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) star HE 1305+0132 ([F/Fe] = +2.90, [Fe/H] = -2.5). We propose that this observation can be explained using a binary model that involve mass transfer from an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star companion and, based on this model, we predict F abundances in CEMP stars in general. We discuss wether F can be used to discriminate between the formation histories of most CEMP stars: via binary mass transfer or from the ejecta of fast-rotating massive stars. We compute AGB yields using different stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis codes to evaluate stellar model uncertainties. We use a simple dilution model to determine the factor by which the AGB yields should be diluted to match the abundances observed in HE 1305+0132. We further employ a binary population synthesis tool to estimate the probability of F-rich CEMP stars. The abundances observed in HE 1305+0132 can be explained if this star accreted 3-11% of the mass lost by its former AGB companion. The primary AGB star should have dredged-up at least 0.2 Msun of material from its He-rich region into the convective envelope via third dredge-up, which corresponds to AGB models of Z ~ 0.0001 and mass ~ 2 Msun. Many AGB model uncertainties, such as the treatment of convective borders and mass loss, require further investigation. We find that in the binary scenario most CEMP stars should also be FEMP stars, that is, have [F/Fe] > +1, while fast-rotating massive stars do not appear to produce fluorine. We conclude that fluorine is a signature of low-mass AGB pollution in CEMP stars, together with elements associated with the slow neutron-capture process.
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