Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21531805r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #318.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.320
Other
Scientific paper
To what extent does stellar nucleosynthesis trace the hierarchical merger history of the Galaxy, and to what degree is it necessary to know the kinematics of a star in order to correctly interpret its chemical enrichment history? In this work, we investigate these questions by performing detailed abundance analyses of stars selected by virtue of their kinematics. We compare the chemistry of the so-called inner and outer components of the halo, finding that the outer halo may be slightly more chemically diverse than the inner halo. We also examine the composition of one of the confirmed building blocks of the halo, a stellar stream, and suggest that it may share a common origin with the globular cluster M15, which has similar kinematics and whose stars show unusually large variations in bulk neutron-capture enrichment relative to other metal poor globular clusters. Along the way, we have placed new constraints on models of neutron-capture nucleosynthesis by quantifying the ``universality'' of the rapid neutron-capture process. These studies are naturally limited by the need to target relatively bright, hence nearby, stars in order to acquire sufficient signal; if we hope to eventually unravel the history of enrichment and accretion of the Galactic halo we must begin to examine samples of stars beyond the Solar neighborhood.
Generous support for this research has been provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation, primarily through grant AST 06-07708.
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