Gaia's view of the $\lambda$ Boo star puzzle

TL;DR

This paper uses Gaia and Hipparcos data to analyze the ages and temperatures of $\

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of $\

Findings

Multiple formation channels for $\

The importance of different channels varies with age, temperature, and environment.

No single mechanism explains all $\

Abstract

The evolutionary status of the chemically peculiar class of $\lambda$ Boo stars has been intensely debated. It is now agreed that the $\lambda$ Boo phenomenon affects A stars of all ages, from star formation to the terminal age main sequence, but the cause of the chemical peculiarity is still a puzzle. We revisit the debate of their ages and temperatures in order to shed light on the phenomenon, using the new parallaxes in Gaia Data Release 1 with existing Hipparcos parallaxes and multicolour photometry. We find that no single formation mechanism is able to explain all the observations, and suggest that there are multiple channels producing $\lambda$ Boo spectra. The relative importance of these channels varies with age, temperature and environment.