Spots on the surface of HgMn stars: Clues to the origin of Hg and Mn peculiarities

TL;DR

This study reveals that most HgMn stars show spectral variability indicating inhomogeneous surface chemical distributions, which is a common characteristic and provides clues to the origin of their peculiar Hg and Mn surface abundances.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that surface inhomogeneities are prevalent in HgMn stars, offering new insights into the processes behind their chemical peculiarities.

Findings

Most HgMn stars exhibit spectral variability.

Surface inhomogeneities are common in HgMn stars.

Spectral variability provides clues to chemical peculiarities.

Abstract

The important result achieved in our recent study of a large sample of HgMn stars using UVES at the VLT and FEROS at the ESO 2.2m telescope is the finding that most HgMn stars exhibit spectral variability of various chemical elements, proving that the presence of an inhomogeneous distribution on the surface of these stars is a rather common characteristics and not a rare phenomenon.