Enrichment by Extragalactic First Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Chiti, Anirudh, Mardini, Mohammad, Limberg, Guilherme, Frebel, Anna, Ji, Alexander P., Reggiani, Henrique, Ferguson, Peter, Andales, Hillary Diane, Brauer, Kaley, Li, Ting S., Simon, Joshua D.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Chiti, Anirudh
Mardini, Mohammad
Limberg, Guilherme
Frebel, Anna
Ji, Alexander P.
Reggiani, Henrique
Ferguson, Peter
Andales, Hillary Diane
Brauer, Kaley
Li, Ting S.
Simon, Joshua D.
author_facet Chiti, Anirudh
Mardini, Mohammad
Limberg, Guilherme
Frebel, Anna
Ji, Alexander P.
Reggiani, Henrique
Ferguson, Peter
Andales, Hillary Diane
Brauer, Kaley
Li, Ting S.
Simon, Joshua D.
contents The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the Milky Way's most massive satellite galaxy, which only recently (~2 billion years ago) fell into our Galaxy. Since stellar atmospheres preserve their natal cloud's composition, the LMC's recent infall makes its most ancient, metal-deficient ("low-metallicity") stars unique windows into early star formation and nucleosynthesis in a formerly distant region of the high-redshift universe. Previously, identifying such stars in the LMC was challenging. But new techniques have opened this window, now enabling tests of whether the earliest element enrichment and star formation in distant, extragalactic proto-galaxies deviated from what occurred in the proto-Milky Way. Here we present the elemental abundances of 10 stars in the LMC with iron-to-hydrogen ratios ranging from ~1/300th to ~1/12,000th of the Sun. Our most metal-deficient star is 50 times more metal-deficient than any in the LMC with available detailed chemical abundance patterns, and is likely enriched by a single extragalactic first star supernova. This star lacks significant carbon-enhancement, as does our overall sample, in contrast with the lowest metallicity Milky Way stars. This, and other abundance differences, affirm that the extragalactic early LMC experienced diverging enrichment processes compared to the early Milky Way. Early element production, driven by the earliest stars, thus appears to proceed in an environment-dependent manner.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_11307
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enrichment by Extragalactic First Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Chiti, Anirudh
Mardini, Mohammad
Limberg, Guilherme
Frebel, Anna
Ji, Alexander P.
Reggiani, Henrique
Ferguson, Peter
Andales, Hillary Diane
Brauer, Kaley
Li, Ting S.
Simon, Joshua D.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the Milky Way's most massive satellite galaxy, which only recently (~2 billion years ago) fell into our Galaxy. Since stellar atmospheres preserve their natal cloud's composition, the LMC's recent infall makes its most ancient, metal-deficient ("low-metallicity") stars unique windows into early star formation and nucleosynthesis in a formerly distant region of the high-redshift universe. Previously, identifying such stars in the LMC was challenging. But new techniques have opened this window, now enabling tests of whether the earliest element enrichment and star formation in distant, extragalactic proto-galaxies deviated from what occurred in the proto-Milky Way. Here we present the elemental abundances of 10 stars in the LMC with iron-to-hydrogen ratios ranging from ~1/300th to ~1/12,000th of the Sun. Our most metal-deficient star is 50 times more metal-deficient than any in the LMC with available detailed chemical abundance patterns, and is likely enriched by a single extragalactic first star supernova. This star lacks significant carbon-enhancement, as does our overall sample, in contrast with the lowest metallicity Milky Way stars. This, and other abundance differences, affirm that the extragalactic early LMC experienced diverging enrichment processes compared to the early Milky Way. Early element production, driven by the earliest stars, thus appears to proceed in an environment-dependent manner.
title Enrichment by Extragalactic First Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.11307