Rotational mixing in carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars with s-process enrichment

TL;DR

This study investigates how rotational mixing affects surface abundances in CEMP-s stars, showing that rotation inhibits atomic diffusion and influences observed chemical signatures, which is crucial for understanding their evolution.

Contribution

It demonstrates that rotational mixing naturally counteracts atomic diffusion in CEMP-s stars, providing a new perspective on their surface abundances and evolution.

Findings

Rotational mixing inhibits atomic diffusion in CEMP-s stars.

Angular momentum accretion causes chemical dilution at high rotation velocities.

Rotation velocities below 1 km/s still significantly inhibit atomic diffusion.

Abstract

Carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars with s-process enrichment (CEMP-s) are believed to be the products of mass transfer from an AGB companion, which has long since become a white dwarf. The surface abundances of CEMP-s stars are thus commonly assumed to reflect the nucleosynthesis output of the first AGB stars. We have previously shown that, for this to be the case, some physical mechanism must counter atomic diffusion in these nearly fully radiative stars, which otherwise leads to surface abundance anomalies clearly inconsistent with observations. Here we take into account angular momentum accretion by these stars. We compute in detail the evolution of typical CEMP-s stars from the ZAMS, through the mass accretion, and up the RGB for a wide range of specific angular momentum of the accreted material, corresponding to rotation velocities between about 0.3 and 300 km/s. We find that only for specific angular momentum above 1e+17 cm2/s (rotation velocities above 20 km/s) angular momentum accretion directly causes chemical dilution of the accreted material. This could nevertheless be relevant to CEMP-s stars, which are observed to rotate more slowly, if they undergo continuous angular momentum loss akin to solar-like stars. In models with rotation velocities characteristic of CEMP-s stars, rotational mixing primarily serves to inhibit atomic diffusion, such that the maximal surface abundance variations (with respect to the composition of the accreted material) prior to first dredge-up remain within about 0.4 dex without thermohaline mixing or about 0.5-1.5 dex with thermohaline mixing. Even in models with the lowest rotation velocities (under a km/s), rotational mixing is able to severely inhibit atomic diffusion, compared to non-rotating models. We thus conclude that it offers a natural solution to the problem posed by atomic diffusion and cannot be neglected in models of CEMP-s stars.