The Gaia-ESO Survey : alpha-abundances of metal-poor stars

• We performed a detailed study of the ratio of low-alpha to high-alpha stars in the Galactic halo as observed by the Gaia-ESO Survey. Using a sample of 381 metal-poor stars from the second internal data release, we found that the value of this ratio did not show evidence of systematic trends as a function of metallicity, surface gravity, Galactic latitude, Galactic longitude, height above the Galactic plane, and Galactocentric radius. We conclude that the alpha(poor)/alpha(rich) value of 0.28 +/- 0.08 suggests that in the inner halo, the larger portion of stars were formed in a high star formation rate environment, and about 15% of the metal-poor stars originated from much lower star formation rate environments.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

stars: abundances

Galaxy: halo

stars: abundances

Galaxy: halo

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)