Fluorine in the Solar Neighborhood: Chemical Evolution Models

TL;DR

This study uses chemical evolution models to analyze fluorine abundance data in the solar neighborhood, highlighting the importance of AGB stars, Wolf-Rayet stars, and novae in fluorine nucleosynthesis.

Contribution

It introduces refined models incorporating Wolf-Rayet stars and novae yields to better match observed fluorine abundance ratios in the solar neighborhood.

Findings

AGB stars dominate fluorine production.

Wolf-Rayet stars are necessary to fit observed data.

Novae help reproduce secondary fluorine behavior.

Abstract

In the light of the new observational data related to fluorine abundances in the solar neighborhood stars, we present here chemical evolution models testing different fluorine nucleosynthesis prescriptions with the aim to best fit those new data related to the abundance ratios [F/O] vs. [O/H] and [F/Fe] vs. [Fe/H]. The adopted chemical evolution models are: i) the classical "two-infall" model which follows the chemical evolution of halo-thick disk and thin disk phases, ii) and the "one-infall" model designed only for the thin disk evolution. We tested the effects on the predicted fluorine abundance ratios of different nucleosynthesis yield sources: AGB stars, Wolf-Rayet stars, Type II and Type Ia supernovae, and novae. We find that the fluorine production is dominated by AGB stars but the Wolf-Rayet stars are required to reproduce the trend of the observed data in the solar neighborhood by J\"onsson et al. (2017a) with our chemical evolution models. In particular, the best model both for the "two-infall" and "one-infall" cases requires an increase by a factor of two of the Wolf-Rayet yields given by Meynet & Arnould (2000). We also show that the novae, even if their yields are still uncertain, could help to better reproduce the secondary behavior of F in the [F/O] vs. [O/H] relation. The inclusion of the fluorine production by Wolf-Rayet stars seems to be essential to reproduce the observed ratio [F/O] vs [O/H] in the solar neighborhood by J\"onsson et al. (2017a). Moreover, the inclusion of novae helps substantially to reproduce the observed fluorine secondary behavior.