Timing the r-process Enrichment of the Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy Reticulum II

Simon, Joshua D.; Brown, Thomas M.; Mutlu-Pakdil, Burçin; Ji, Alexander P.; Drlica-Wagner, Alex; Avila, Roberto J.; Martínez-Vázquez, Clara E.; Li, Ting S.; Balbinot, Eduardo; Bechtol, Keith; Frebel, Anna; Geha, Marla; Hansen, Terese T.; James, David J.; Pace, Andrew B.; Aguena, M.; Alves, O.; Andrade-Oliveira, F.; Annis, J.; Bacon, D.; Bertin, E.; Brooks, D.; Burke, D. L.; Carnero Rosell, A.; Carrasco Kind, M.; Carretero, J.; Costanzi, M.; da Costa, L. N.; De Vicente, J.; Desai, S.; Doel, P.; Everett, S.; Ferrero, I.; Frieman, J.; García-Bellido, J.; Gatti, M.; Gerdes, D. W.; Gruen, D.; Gruendl, R. A.; Gschwend, J.; Gutierrez, G.; Hinton, S. R.; Hollowood, D. L.; Honscheid, K.; Kuehn, K.; Kuropatkin, N.; Marshall, J. L.; Mena-Fernández, J.; Miquel, R.; Palmese, A.; Paz-Chinchón, F.; Pereira, M. E. S.; Pieres, A.; Plazas Malagón, A. A.; Raveri, M.; Rodriguez-Monroy, M.; Sanchez, E.; Santiago, B.; Scarpine, V.; Sevilla-Noarbe, I.; Smith, M.; Suchyta, E.; Swanson, M. E. C.; Tarle, G.; To, C.; Vincenzi, M.; Weaverdyck, N.; Wilkinson, R. D.
Referencia bibliográfica

The Astrophysical Journal

Fecha de publicación:
2
2023
Número de autores
68
Número de autores del IAC
1
Número de citas
11
Número de citas referidas
7
Descripción
The ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Reticulum II (Ret II) exhibits a unique chemical evolution history, with ${72}_{-12}^{+10}$ % of its stars strongly enhanced in r-process elements. We present deep Hubble Space Telescope photometry of Ret II and analyze its star formation history. As in other ultra-faint dwarfs, the color-magnitude diagram is best fit by a model consisting of two bursts of star formation. If we assume that the bursts were instantaneous, then the older burst occurred around the epoch of reionization, forming ~80% of the stars in the galaxy, while the remainder of the stars formed ~3 Gyr later. When the bursts are allowed to have nonzero durations, we obtain slightly better fits. The best-fitting model in this case consists of two bursts beginning before reionization, with approximately half the stars formed in a short (100 Myr) burst and the other half in a more extended period lasting 2.6 Gyr. Considering the full set of viable star formation history models, we find that 28% of the stars formed within 500 ± 200 Myr of the onset of star formation. The combination of the star formation history and the prevalence of r-process-enhanced stars demonstrates that the r-process elements in Ret II must have been synthesized early in its initial star-forming phase. We therefore constrain the delay time between the formation of the first stars in Ret II and the r-process nucleosynthesis to be less than 500 Myr. This measurement rules out an r-process source with a delay time of several Gyr or more, such as GW170817.
Proyectos relacionados
El andamiaje invisible del espacio
Cosmología con Trazadores de la Estructura a Gran Escala del Universo

El Fondo Cósmico de Microondas (FCM) contiene la información estadística de las semillas primigenias que han dado lugar a la formación de todas las estructuras en el Universo. Su contrapartida natural en el Universo local es la distribución de las galaxias que surgen como resultado del crecimiento gravitatorio de aquellas fluctuaciones de densidad

FRANCISCO SHU
KITAURA JOYANES