Related papers: R-process-rich stellar streams in the Milky Way
The ratios of elemental abundances observed in metal-poor stars of the Galactic halo provide a unique present-day record of the nucleosynthesis products of its earliest stars. While the heaviest elements were synthesized by the r- and…
(Abridged) The stellar sites and the complete mechanism of r-process nucleosynthesis are still unresolved issues. From consideration of the observed abundances in metal-poor stars, it is proposed that the production of the heavy r-process…
In recent years, Galactic archaeology has become a particularly vibrant field of astronomy, with its main focus set on the oldest stars of our Galaxy. In most cases, these stars have been identified as the most metal-poor. However, the…
Context. The Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf spheroidal galaxy is currently being disrupted under the strain of the Milky Way. A reliable reconstruction of Sgr star formation history can only be obtained by combining core and stream information.…
We present an empirical s-process abundance distribution derived with explicit knowledge of the r-process component in the low-metallicity globular cluster M22. We have obtained high-resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra for 6 red giants…
We have analyzed the phase space distribution of a sample of about 900 non--kinematically selected low metallicity stars in the solar vicinity. The stars primarily represent the thick disk and halo populations of the Milky Way. We aim to…
Probing the origin of r-process elements in the universe represents a multi-disciplinary challenge. We review the observational evidence that probe the properties of r-process sites, and address them using galactic chemical evolution…
The heavy elements formed by neutron capture processes have an interesting history from which we can extract useful clues to and constraints upon both the characteristics of the processes themselves and the star formation and…
Comparing Galactic chemical evolution models to the observed elemental abundances in the Milky Way, we show that neutron star mergers can be a leading r-process site only if at low metallicities such mergers have very short delay times and…
During the last several decades, there have been a number of advances in understanding the rapid neutron-capture process (i.e., the r-process). These advances include large quantities of high-resolution spectroscopic abundance data of…
The ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Reticulum 2 (Ret 2) was recently discovered in images obtained by the Dark Energy Survey. We have observed the four brightest red giants in Ret 2 at high spectral resolution using the Michigan/Magellan Fiber…
Moderately r-process-enriched stars (r-I) are at least four times as common as those that are greatly enriched in r-process elements (r-II), and the abundances in their atmospheres are important tools for obtaining a better understanding of…
Abundance observations indicate the presence of rapid-neutron capture (i.e., r-process) elements in old Galactic halo and globular cluster stars. These observations demonstrate that the earliest generations of stars in the Galaxy,…
Observations of GW170817 strongly suggest that binary neutron star (BNS) mergers produce rapid neutron-capture nucleosynthesis (r-process) elements. However, it remains an open question whether these mergers can account for all the…
The most metal-poor stars in the Milky Way witnessed the early phases of formation of the Galaxy, and have chemical compositions that are close to the pristine mixture from Big Bang nucleosynthesis, polluted by one or few supernovae. Only…
A pole-count analysis of the infrared 2MASS survey is presented, in order to identify faint stream-like structures within the halo of the Milky Way. Selecting stars with colours consistent with M-giant stars, we find a strong over-density…
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…
We present chemical abundance analyses of sodium, iron-peak and neutron-capture elements for 97 kinematically selected thick disk, inner halo and outer halo stars with metallicities -3.3<[Fe/H]<-0.5. The main aim of this study is to examine…
High-resolution spectroscopy of stars on the red giant branch (RGB) of the globular cluster M15 has revealed a large (~1 dex) dispersion in the abundances of r-process elements, like Ba and Eu. Neutron star mergers (NSMs) have been proposed…
We study turbulent gas diffusion affects on $r$-process abundances in Milky Way stars, by a combination of an analytical approach and a Monte Carlo simulation. Higher $r$-process event rates and faster diffusion, lead to more efficient…