A New Approach to Copper Abundances in Metal-Poor Stars

Details A New Approach to Copper Abundances in Metal-Poor Stars A New Approach to Copper Abundances in Metal-Poor Stars

Dec 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aas...193.4516b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 193rd AAS Meeting, #45.16; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.1320

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We report new determinations of copper abundances for a sample of seven metal-poor (--3.1>=[Fe/H]>=--1.6) field stars, using two previously little-used Cu I resonance lines in the near-UV. These lines, appearing at 3247.6 Angstroms and 3274.0 Angstroms, are easily detected on Keck I HIRES spectra that were originally obtained to study beryllium abundances in the target stars. In earlier work, copper abundance ratios have been derived for a large group of relatively metal-poor field stars using higher excitation Cu I lines at 5105 Angstroms and 5782 Angstroms. A large, and possibly linear, decrease in [Cu/Fe] with declining [Fe/H] has been suggested. However, the visible wavelength transitions are usually too weak to be detected in stars having less than ~ --2 dex overall metallicity. Copper abundances for these very metal-poor stars must be determined from intrinsically stronger lines, and our study represents the first time the near-UV transitions have been analyzed in their spectra. Isotopic and hyperfine splitting was taken into account in the present analysis, and the [Cu/Fe] ratios in our stars were very low, as expected. However, for stars in our sample, [Cu/Fe] was found always to be ~ --1, with little or no trend with [Fe/H]. A larger stellar sample is needed to determine whether a floor in [Cu/Fe] has indeed been reached at low metallicities.

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