Spectroscopic Abundances and Membership in the Wolf 630 Moving Group

TL;DR

This study investigates the Wolf 630 moving group by analyzing stellar spectra to determine chemical homogeneity and age, supporting its possible origin as a dispersed open cluster approximately 2.7 billion years old.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed chemical abundance analysis of the Wolf 630 moving group, confirming a homogeneous subset consistent with a dispersed cluster origin.

Findings

19 stars form a chemically homogeneous group

Estimated age of the group is 2.7 ± 0.5 Gyr

Group has near-solar metallicity with <[Fe/H]> = -0.01 ± 0.02

Abstract

The concept of kinematic assemblages evolving from dispersed stellar clusters has remained contentious since Eggen's initial formulation of moving groups in the 1960's. With high quality parallaxes from the Hipparcos space astrometry mission, distance measurements for thousands of nearby, seemingly isolated stars are currently available. With these distances, a high resolution spectroscopic abundance analysis can be brought to bear on the alleged members of these moving groups. If a structure is a relic of an open cluster, the members can be expected to be monolithic in age and abundance inasmuch as homogeneity is observed in young open clusters. In this work we have examined 34 putative members of the proposed Wolf 630 moving group using high resolution stellar spectroscopy. The stars of the sample have been chemically tagged to determine abundance homogeneity and confirm the existence of a homogeneous subsample of 19 stars. Fitting the homogeneous subsample with Yale-Yonsei isochrones yields a single evolutionary sequence of $\sim$2.7 $\pm$ 0.5 Gyr. It is concluded that this 19 star subsample of the Wolf 630 moving group sample of 34 stars could represent a dispersed cluster with an $<$[Fe/H]$>$=-0.01 $\pm$ 0.02 and an age of 2.7 $\pm$ 0.5 Gyr. In addition, chemical abundances of Na and Al in giants are examined for indications of enhancements as observed in field giants of old open clusters, overexcitation/ionization effects are explored in the cooler dwarfs of the sample and oxygen is derived from the infrared triplet and the forbidden line at $\lambda$6300 \AA.