Examinando por Autor "Lallement, R."

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    Discovery of a thin lithium plateau among metal-poor red giant branch stars
    (EDP Sciences, 2022-05-01) Mucciarelli, A.; Monaco, L.; Bonifacio, P.; Salaris, M.; Deal, M.; Spite, M.; Richard, O.A.; Lallement, R.
    The surface lithium abundance, A(Li), of warm metal-poor dwarf stars exhibits a narrow plateau down to [Fe/H] ~-2.8 dex, while at lower metallicities the average value drops by 0.3 dex with a significant star-by-star scatter (called 'lithium meltdown'). This behaviour is in conflict with predictions of standard stellar evolution models calculated with the initial A(Li) provided by the standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis. The lower red giant branch (LRGB) stars provide a complementary tool to understand the initial A(Li) distribution in metal-poor stars. We have collected a sample of high-resolution spectra of 58 LRGB stars spanning a range of [Fe/H] between ~-7.0 dex and ~-1.3 dex. The LRGB stars display an A(Li) distribution that is clearly different from that of the dwarfs, without signatures of a meltdown and with two distinct components: (a) a thin A(Li) plateau with an average A(Li) = 1.09 ± 0.01 dex (σ = 0.07 dex) and (b) a small fraction of Li-poor stars with A(Li) lower than ~0.7 dex. The A(Li) distribution observed in LRGB stars can be reconciled with an initial abundance close to the cosmological value by including an additional chemical element transport in stellar evolution models. The required efficiency of this transport allows us to also match the Spite plateau lithium abundance measured in the dwarfs. The emerging scenario is that all metal-poor stars formed with the same initial A(Li), but those that are likely the product of coalescence or that experienced binary mass transfer show lower A(Li). We conclude that the A(Li) in LRGB stars is qualitatively compatible with the cosmological A(Li) value and that the meltdown observed in dwarf stars does not reflect a real drop in the abundance at birth. © 2022 BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
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    MINCE: I. Presentation of the project and of the first year sample
    (EDP Sciences, 2022-12-01) Cescutti, G.; Bonifacio, P.; Caffau, E.; Monaco, L.; Franchini, M.; Lombardo, L.; Matas Pinto, A.M.; Lucertini, F.; François, P.; Spitoni, E.; Lallement, R.; Sbordone, L.; Mucciarelli, A.; Spite, M.; Hansen, C.J.; Di Marcantonio, P.; Kučinskas, A.; Dobrovolskas, V.; Korn, A.J.; Valentini, M.; Magrini, L.; Cristallo, S.; Matteucci, F.
    Context. In recent years, Galactic archaeology has become a particularly vibrant field of astronomy, with its main focus set on the oldest stars of our Galaxy. In most cases, these stars have been identified as the most metal-poor. However, the struggle to find these ancient fossils has produced an important bias in the observations - in particular, the intermediate metal-poor stars (-2.5 < [Fe/H] <-1.5) have been frequently overlooked. The missing information has consequences for the precise study of the chemical enrichment of our Galaxy, in particular for what concerns neutron capture elements and it will be only partially covered by future multi object spectroscopic surveys such as WEAVE and 4MOST. Aims. Measuring at Intermediate Metallicity Neutron Capture Elements (MINCE) is gathering the first high-quality spectra (high signal-to-noise ratio, S/N, and high resolution) for several hundreds of bright and metal-poor stars, mainly located in our Galactic halo. Methods. We compiled our selection mainly on the basis of Gaia data and determined the stellar atmospheres of our sample and the chemical abundances of each star. Results. In this paper, we present the first sample of 59 spectra of 46 stars. We measured the radial velocities and computed the Galactic orbits for all stars. We found that 8 stars belong to the thin disc, 15 to disrupted satellites, and the remaining cannot be associated to the mentioned structures, and we call them halo stars. For 33 of these stars, we provide abundances for the elements up to zinc. We also show the chemical evolution results for eleven chemical elements, based on recent models. Conclusions. Our observational strategy of using multiple telescopes and spectrographs to acquire high S/N and high-resolution spectra for intermediate-metallicity stars has proven to be very efficient, since the present sample was acquired over only about one year of observations. Finally, our target selection strategy, after an initial adjustment, proved satisfactory for our purposes. © 2022 EDP Sciences. All rights reserved.