Rotation and surface abundance peculiarities in A-type stars

TL;DR

This study investigates how stellar rotation influences surface chemical peculiarities in A-type stars, revealing that faster rotation diminishes abundance anomalies and suggesting a possible decrease in galactic gas metallicity over time.

Contribution

It provides new observational evidence linking rotation speed to surface abundance anomalies and proposes a novel perspective on galactic chemical evolution based on these findings.

Findings

Peculiar abundance patterns decrease with increasing rotation.

Stars with high rotational velocity tend to have near-original surface compositions.

Rapidly rotating A stars show subsolar metallicity, indicating possible galactic chemical evolution.

Abstract

In an attempt of clarifying the connection between the photospheric abundance anomalies and the stellar rotation as well as of exploring the nature of "normal A" stars, the abundances of seven elements (C, O, Si, Ca, Ti, Fe, and Ba) and the projected rotational velocity for 46 A-type field stars were determined by applying the spectrum-fitting method to the high-dispersion spectral data obtained with BOES at BOAO. We found that the peculiarities (underabundances of C, O, and Ca; an overabundance of Ba) seen in slow rotators efficiently decrease with an increase of rotation, which almost disappear at v_e sin i > 100 km s^-1. This further suggests that stars with sufficiently large rotational velocity may retain the original composition at the surface without being altered. Considering the subsolar tendency (by several tenths dex below) exhibited by the elemental abundances of such rapidly-rotating (supposedly normal) A stars, we suspect that the gas metallicity may have decreased since our Sun was born, contrary to the common picture of galactic chemical evolution.