Browsing by Author "Myeong, G. C."

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    Elevated r-process Enrichment in Gaia Sausage and Sequoia*
    (2021) Aguado, David S.; Belokurov, Vasily; Myeong, G. C.; Evans, N. Wyn; Kobayashi, Chiaki; Sbordone, Luca; Chaname, Julio; Navarrete, Camila; Koposov, Sergey E.
    The Gaia Sausage (GS) and the Sequoia represent the major accretion events that formed the stellar halo of the Milky Way. A detailed chemical study of these main building blocks provides a pristine view of the early steps of the Galaxy's assembly. We present the results of the analysis of the UVES high-resolution spectroscopic observations at the 8.2 m VLT of nine Sausage/Sequoia members selected kinematically using Gaia DR2. We season this set of measurements with archival data from Nissen & Schuster and GALAH DR3 (2020). Here, we focus on the neutron-capture process by analyzing Sr, Y, Ba, and Eu behavior. We detect clear enhancement in Eu abundance ([Eu/Fe] similar to 0.6-0.7) indicative of large prevalence of the r-process in the stellar n-capture makeup. We are also able to trace the evolution of the heavy element production across a wide range of metallicity. The barium to europium changes from a tight, flat sequence with [Ba/Eu] = -0.7 reflecting dominant contribution from exploding massive stars, to a clear upturn at higher iron abundances, betraying the onset of contamination from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) ejecta. Additionally, we discover two clear sequences in the [Fe/H]-[Ba/Fe] plane likely caused by distinct levels of s-process pollution and mixing within the GS progenitor.
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    The S2 stream: the shreds of a primitive dwarf galaxy
    (2021) Aguado, David S.; Myeong, G. C.; Belokurov, Vasily; Evans, N. Wyn; Koposov, Sergey E.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Lanfranchi, Gustavo A.; Matteucci, Francesca; Shetrone, Matthew; Sbordone, Luca; Navarrete, Camila; Gonzalez Hernandez, Jonay, I; Chaname, Julio; Peralta de Arriba, Luis; Yuan, Zhen
    The S2 stream is a kinematically cold stream that is plunging downwards through the Galactic disc. It may be part of a hotter and more diffuse structure called the Helmi stream. We present a multi-instrument chemical analysis of the stars in the metal-poor S2 stream using both high- and low-resolution spectroscopy, complemented with a re-analysis of the archival data to give a total sample of 62 S2 members. Our high-resolution program provides alpha-elements (C, Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti), iron-peak elements (V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni), n-capture process elements (Sr, Ba), and other elements such as Li, Na, Al, and Sc for a subsample of S2 objects. We report coherent abundance patterns over a large metallicity spread (similar to 1 dex) confirming that the S2 stream was produced by a disrupted dwarf galaxy. The combination of S2's alpha-elements displays a mildly decreasing trend with increasing metallicity, which can be tentatively interpreted as a 'knee' at [Fe/H] < -2. At the low-metallicity end, the n-capture elements in S2 may be dominated by r-process production; however, several stars are Ba-enhanced but unusually poor in Sr. Moreover, some of the low-[Fe/H] stars appear to be carbon-enhanced. We interpret the observed abundance patterns with the help of chemical evolution models that demonstrate the need for modest star formation efficiency and low wind efficiency confirming that the progenitor of S2 was a primitive dwarf galaxy.