Abundances of Cu and Zn in metal-poor stars: Clues for Galaxy evolution

By T. Mishenina, V. Kovtyukh, C. Soubiran, C. Travaglio, M. Busso. 2002

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We present new observations of copper and zinc abundances in 90 metal-poor stars, belonging to the metallicity range −3 100). The trend of Cu and Zn abundances as a function of the metallicity (Fe/H) is discussed and compared to that of other heavy elements beyond iron. We also estimate spatial velocities and galactic orbital parameters for our target stars in order to disentangle the population of disk stars from that of halo stars using kinematic criteria. In the absence of a firm a priori knowledge of the nucleosynthesis mechanisms controlling Cu and Zn production, and of the relative stellar sites, we derive constraints on these last from the trend of the observed ratios (Cu/Fe) and (Zn/Fe) throughout the history of the Galaxy, as well as from a few well established properties of basic nucleosynthesis processes in stars. We thus confirm that the production of Cu and Zn requires a number of different sources (neutron captures in massive stars, s-processing in low and intermediate mass stars, explosive nucleosynthesis in various supernova types). We also attempt a ranking of the relative roles played by different production mechanisms, and verify these hints through a simple estimate of the galactic enrichment in Cu and Zn. In agreement with suggestions presented earlier, we find evidence that type Ia Supernovae must play a relevant role, especially for the production of Cu.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3993cf7d5d927a5025d029602a7b1ce5e0c5e340

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Citations in the corpus

Quantifying the uncertainties of chemical evolution studies II. Stellar yields (2010, background): “They have demonstrated that, on a galactic scale, Cu is mainly produced by massive stars, rather than by SNeIa as previously thought (Matteucci et al. 1993; Mishenina et al. 2002).”
Near-Ultraviolet Observations of HD 221170: New Insights into the Nature of r-Process-rich Stars (2006, methodology): “…r-processrich star and has often been utilized as a template metal-poor star observation in other programs, including those of Burris et al. (2000), Fulbright (2000), Mishenina & Kovtyukh (2001), Mishenina et al. (2002), Yushchenko et al. (2002), Simmerer et al. (2004), and Barklem et al. (2005).”
The Hamburg/ESO R-process enhanced star survey (HERES) - III. HE 0338-3945 and the formation of the r + s stars (2006, result): “The abundance of Cu is low relative to iron, and comparable with results for normal stars of similar metallicity (Mishenina et al. 2002, Bihain et al. 2004).”
S4N: A spectroscopic survey of stars in the solar neighborhood: The nearest 15 pc (2004, background): “…to log (Cu) = 4.18 dex, in good agreement with the value proposed by Grevesse & Sauval (1998) of 4.21, but slightly higher than derived by Cunha et al. (2002) and Simmerer et al. (2003) (4.06 dex). in very metal-poor halo stars in the field or clusters (Mishenina et al. 2002; Simmerer et al. 2003).”
Abundance Variations within Globular Clusters (2004, result): “The field-star results are only from Reddy et al. (2003) and Mishenina et al. (2002); these data reproduce the familiar severe drop in [Cu/Fe] discovered by Sneden, Gratton & Crocker (1991a).”
The Extremely Metal-poor, Neutron Capture-rich Star CS 22892-052: A Comprehensive Abundance Analysis (2003, background): “Since the 5105 line cannot be detected on our CS 22892-052 spectra, the mapping of its Cu abundance onto [Cu/Fe] trends with metallicity (e.g., Mishenina et al. 2002) cannot be accomplished with confidence yet.”
Elemental abundance survey of the Galactic thick disc (2005, result): “Our results generally confirm earlier results for disc and halo stars (Sneden, Gratton & Crocker 1991; Mishenina et al. 2002; Bihain et al. 2004; Simmerer et al. 2004).”
The two metallicity groups of the globular cluster M 22: a chemical perspective (2011, background): “Copper is very underabundant in M22, just as it is in other low metallicity field stars (Sneden, Gratton, & Crocker 1991, Mishenina et al. 2002) and globular clusters (Simmerer et al. 2003).”
“Sculptor-ing” the Galaxy? The Chemical Compositions of Red Giants in the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (2004, background): “Mishenina et al. (2002) find a steady decrease in ½Cu=Fe with decreasing ½Fe=H .”