Bibcode
Hasselquist, Sten; Holtzman, Jon A.; Shetrone, Matthew; Tayar, Jamie; Weinberg, David H.; Feuillet, Diane; Cunha, Katia; Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Bird, Jonathan; Beers, Timothy C.; Schiavon, Ricardo; Minchev, Ivan; Fernández-Trincado, J. G.; García-Hernández, D. A.; Nitschelm, Christian; Zamora, O.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 871, Issue 2, article id. 181, 15 pp. (2019).
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2
2019
Journal
Citations
28
Refereed citations
26
Description
We present [C/N]–[Fe/H] abundance trends from the SDSS-IV Apache
Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment survey, Data Release 14
(DR14), for red giant branch stars across the Milky Way (3 kpc < R
< 15 kpc). The carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (often expressed as [C/N])
can indicate the mass of a red giant star, from which an age can be
inferred. Using masses and ages derived by Martig et al., we demonstrate
that we are able to interpret the DR14 [C/N]–[Fe/H] abundance
distributions as trends in age–[Fe/H] space. Our results show that
an anticorrelation between age and metallicity, which is predicted by
simple chemical evolution models, is not present at any Galactic zone.
Stars far from the plane (| Z| > 1 kpc) exhibit a radial gradient in
[C/N] (∼‑0.04 dex kpc‑1). The [C/N]
dispersion increases toward the plane (σ [C/N] = 0.13
at | Z| > 1 kpc to σ [C/N] = 0.18 dex at ∣Z∣
< 0.5 kpc). We measure a disk metallicity gradient for the youngest
stars (age < 2.5 Gyr) of ‑0.060 dex kpc‑1 from
6 to 12 kpc, which is in agreement with the gradient found using young
CoRoGEE stars by Anders et al. Older stars exhibit a flatter gradient
(‑0.016 dex kpc‑1), which is predicted by
simulations in which stars migrate from their birth radii. We also find
that radial migration is a plausible explanation for the observed upturn
of the [C/N]–[Fe/H] abundance trends in the outer Galaxy, where
the metal-rich stars are relatively enhanced in [C/N].
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Low- to intermediate-mass (M < 8 solar masses, Ms) stars represent the majority of stars in the Cosmos. They finish their lives on the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) - just before they form planetary nebulae (PNe) - where they experience complex nucleosynthetic and molecular processes. AGB stars are important contributors to the enrichment of the
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García Hernández