Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Publications

2010

Stars: abundances

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Spectroscopic Abundances And Membership In The Wolf 630 Moving Group, Eric J. Bubar, Jeremy R. King Aug 2010

Spectroscopic Abundances And Membership In The Wolf 630 Moving Group, Eric J. Bubar, Jeremy R. King

Publications

The concept of kinematic assemblages evolving from dispersed stellar clusters has remained contentious since Eggen’s initial formulation of moving groups in the 1960s. With high-quality parallaxes from the Hipparcos space astrometry mission, distance measurements for thousands of nearby, seemingly isolated stars are currently available. With these distances, a high-resolution spectroscopic abundance analysis can be brought to bear on the alleged members of these moving groups. If a structure is a relic of an open cluster, the members can be expected to be monolithic in age and abundance in as much as homogeneity is observed in young open clusters. In this …


Fe I And Fe Ii Abundances Of Solar-Type Dwarfs In The Pleiades Open Cluster, Simon C. Schuler, Adele L. Plunkett, Jeremy R. King, Marc H. Pinsonneault May 2010

Fe I And Fe Ii Abundances Of Solar-Type Dwarfs In The Pleiades Open Cluster, Simon C. Schuler, Adele L. Plunkett, Jeremy R. King, Marc H. Pinsonneault

Publications

We have derived Fe abundances of 16 solar-type Pleiades dwarfs by means of an equivalent width analysis of Fe I and Fe II lines in high-resolution spectra obtained with the Hobby - Eberly Telescope and High Resolution Spectrograph. Abundances derived from Fe II lines are larger than those derived from Fe I lines (herein referred to as over-ionization) for stars with Teff < 5400 K, and the dis-crepancy (∆Fe = [Fe II/H] - [Fe I/H]) increases dramatically with decreasing Teff, reaching over 0.8 dex for the coolest stars of our sample. The Pleiades joins the open clusters M34, the Hyades, IC2602, and IC2391, and the Ursa Major moving group, demonstrating ostensible over-ionization trends. The Pleiades ∆Fe abun-dances are correlated with Ca II infrared triplet and Hα chromospheric emission indicators and relative differences therein. Oxygen abundances of our Pleiades sample derived from the high-excitation O I triplet have been previously shown to increase with decreasing Teff, and a comparison with the ∆Fe abundances sug-gests that the over-excitation (larger abundances derived from high excitation lines relative to low excitation lines) and over-ionization effects that have been observed in cool open cluster and disk field main sequence (MS) dwarfs share a common origin. Curiously, a correlation between the Pleiades O I abundances and chromospheric emission indicators does not exist. Star-to-star Fe I abun-dances have low internal scatter (< 0.11 dex), but the abundances of stars with Teff< 5400 K are systematically higher compared to the warmer stars. The cool star [Fe I/H] abundances cannot be connected directly to over-excitation effects, but similarities with the ∆Fe and O I triplet trends suggest the abundances are dubious. Using the [Fe I/H] abundances of five stars with Teff > 5400 K, we derive a mean Pleiades cluster metallicity of [Fe/H] = +0.01 ± 0.02.