Three new barium dwarfs with WD companions: BD+68 1027, RE J0702+129 and BD+80 670

TL;DR

This study identifies three new barium dwarf stars with white dwarf companions, providing evidence of their binary nature and analyzing their chemical compositions to understand s-process element enrichment.

Contribution

It reports three new Ba dwarfs with WD companions, derives detailed chemical abundances, and compares observed data with AGB models to support the mass transfer origin of s-process enrichment.

Findings

Confirmed Ba dwarfs are in Sirius-like systems with WD companions.

Derived chemical abundances show s-process enhancement consistent with AGB mass transfer.

Estimated progenitor AGB masses align with theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We report three new barium (Ba) dwarfs lying in Sirius-like systems, which provides direct evidence that Ba dwarfs are companions to white dwarfs (WDs). Atmospheric parameters, stellar masses, and chemical abundances of 25 elements, including light, $\alpha$, Fe-peak and s-process elements, are derived from high resolution and high S/N spectra. Enhancement of s-process elements with [s/Fe] ratios between 0.4 and 0.6 confirm them as mild barium stars. The estimated metallicities ($-$0.31, $-$0.06, 0.13) of BD+68$^\circ$1027, RE~J0702+129 and BD+80$^\circ$670 are in the range of known Ba dwarfs and giants. As expected, observed indices of [hs/ls], [s/Fe] and [C/Fe] show anticorrelation with metallicity. AGB progenitor masses are estimated for the WD companions of RE~J0702+129 (1.47 $M_{\odot}$) and BD+80$^\circ$670 (3.59 $M_{\odot}$), which confirms the predicted range of progenitor AGB masses (1.5 $\sim$ 4 $M_{\odot}$) for unseen WDs around Ba dwarfs. Surface abundances of s-process elements in RE~J0702+129 and BD+80$^\circ$670 are compared with AGB models and they are in close agreement, within predicted accretion efficiencies and pollution factors for Ba stars. These results support that the origin of s-process overabundances in Ba dwarfs is similar to Ba giants via McClure hypothesis in which Ba stars accumulate s-process elements through mass transfer from their host companions during AGB phase.