Formation of N-rich field stars in the high-density building blocks of the Galactic bulge

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to explore how nitrogen-rich stars form in the high-density building blocks of the Galactic bulge, revealing conditions that produce these stars and their likely origins.

Contribution

It demonstrates that high-density, low gas fraction environments can produce N-rich stars, suggesting they originate from bulge building blocks rather than globular clusters.

Findings

High-density environments (>0.1 M_sun/pc^3) produce >1% N-rich stars within 0.5 Gyr.

N-rich stars have compact, disky, and rotational kinematic properties.

N-rich stars likely originate from bulge building blocks, not globular clusters.

Abstract

Recent observational studies of the Galactic bulge by APOGEE have revealed that about 1% of the bulge stars have rather high nitrogen abundances ([N/Fe]>0.5). We here numerically investigate in what physical conditions these N-rich stars (NRS) can be formed in spherical and disky stellar systems with stellar masses of 10^7-10^9 M_sun that are the bulge's building blocks. The principal results are as follows. A large fraction (>0.5) of new stars formed from interstellar medium polluted (ISM) by ejecta of asymptotic giant branch stars can have [N/Fe]>0.5 within stellar systems, if the gas mass fraction of ISM (f_g) is low (< 0.03). The mass fraction of NRS among all stars (f_nrs) can be higher than 1% within 0.5 Gyr timescale of star formation, if the mean stellar densities (rho_s) of the systems are higher than 0.1 M_sun/ pc^3. The [N/Fe] distributions depend on rho_s, f_g, and age distributions of their host stellar systems. NRS have compact and disky spatial distributions within their host systems and have rotational kinematics. Based on these results, we propose that the vast majority of the bulge's NRS originate not from globular clusters (GCs) but from its high-density building blocks. We suggest that NRS in the Galactic stellar halo have the same origin as those in the bulge. We also suggest that low-density dwarf spheroidal and gas-rich dwarfs are unlikely to form NRS. GCs are not only the formation sites of NRS.