Bibcode
Adamów, M.; Niedzielski, A.; Villaver, E.; Wolszczan, A.; Nowak, G.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 569, id.A55, 18 pp.
Advertised on:
9
2014
Journal
Citations
47
Refereed citations
43
Description
Context. Standard stellar evolution theory does not predict existence of
Li-rich giant stars. Several mechanisms for Li-enrichment have been
proposed to operate at certain locations inside some stars. The actual
mechanism operating in real stars is still unknown. Aims: Using
the sample of 348 stars from the Penn State - Toruń Centre for
Astronomy Planet Search, for which uniformly determined atmospheric
parameters are available, with chemical abundances and rotational
velocities presented here, we investigate various channels of Li
enrichment in giants. We also study Li-overabundant giants in more
detail in search for origin of their peculiarities. Methods: Our
work is based on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope spectra obtained with the
High Resolution Spectrograph, which we use for determination of
abundances and rotational velocities. The Li abundance was determined
from the 7Li λ670.8 nm line, while we use a more
extended set of lines for α-elements abundances. In a series of
Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, we compare Li-overabundant giants with other
stars in the sample. We also use available IR photometric and
kinematical data in search for evidence of mass-loss. We investigate
properties of the most Li-abundant giants in more detail by using
multi-epoch precise radial velocities. Results: We present Li and
α-elements abundances, as well as rotational velocities for 348
stars. We detected Li in 92 stars, of which 82 are giants. Eleven of
them show significant Li abundance A(Li)NLTE> 1.4 and
seven of them are Li-overabundant objects, according to common criterion
of A(Li) > 1.5 and their location on HR diagram, including TYC
0684-00553-1 and TYC 3105-00152-1, which are two giants with Li
abundances close to meteoritic level. For another 271 stars, upper
limits of Li abundance are presented. We confirmed three objects with
increased stellar rotation. We show that Li-overabundant giants are
among the most massive stars from our sample and show larger than
average effective temperatures. They are indistinguishable from the
complete sample in terms of their distribution of luminosity,
metallicity, rotational velocities, and α-elements abundances. Our
results do not point out to one specific Li-enrichment mechanism
operating in our sample of giants. On the contrary, in some cases, we
cannot identify fingerprints of any of known scenarios. We show,
however, that the four most Li-rich giants in our sample either have
low-mass companions or have radial velocity variations at the level of
~100 m s-1, which strongly suggests that the presence of
companions is an important factor in the Li-enrichment processes in
giants.
Based on observations obtained with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is
a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, the Pennsylvania
State University, Stanford University,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Based on observations made
with the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) operated on the
island of La Palma by the Fundación Galileo Galilei of the INAF
(Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica) at the Spanish Observatorio del
Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de
Canarias. Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope,
operated on the island of La Palma jointly by Denmark, Finland, Iceland,
Norway, and Sweden, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los
Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. Based on
observations obtained with the HERMES spectrograph, which is supported
by the Fund for Scientific Research of Flanders (FWO), Belgium, the
Research Council of K.U.Leuven, Belgium, the Fonds National Recherches
Scientific (FNRS), Belgium, the Royal Observatory of Belgium, the
Observatoire de Genéve, Switzerland and the Thüringer
Landessternwarte Tautenburg, Germany.Table 5 is only available at the
CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr
(ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/569/A55
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