Lithium and Beryllium in the Gaia-Enceladus Galaxy

TL;DR

This study investigates lithium and beryllium abundances in stars from the Gaia-Enceladus galaxy, revealing insights into chemical evolution and supporting the universality of the Spite plateau across different galactic environments.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of Li and Be in Gaia-Enceladus stars, comparing their abundances with the Milky Way and exploring implications for galaxy formation and chemical evolution.

Findings

Li abundances in Gaia-Enceladus stars align with the Galactic halo, supporting the universality of the Spite plateau.

A small percentage of Li-rich giants in Gaia-Enceladus mirrors that in the Milky Way.

Be abundances show different evolution patterns, indicating diverse chemical histories.

Abstract

Data from Gaia DR2 and APOGEE surveys revealed a relatively new component in the inner Galactic halo, which is likely the dynamical remnant of a disrupted dwarf galaxy named Gaia-Enceladus that collided with the Milky Way about 10 Gyrs ago. This merging event offers an extraordinary opportunity to study chemical abundances of elements in a dwarf galaxy, since they are generally hampered in external galaxies. Here, we focus on Li and Be in dwarf stars which are out of reach even in Local Group galaxies.Searching in GALAH, Gaia-ESO survey and in literature, we found several existing 7Li abundance determinations of stars belonging to the Gaia-Enceladus galaxy. The 7Li abundances of stars at the low metallicity end overlap with those of the Galactic halo.These are effective extragalactic 7Li measurements, which suggest that the {\it Spite plateau} is universal, as is the cosmological Li problem. We found a Li-rich giant out of 101 stars, which suggests a small percentage similar to that of the Milky Way. We also collect 9Be abundances for a subsample of 25 Gaia-Enceladus stars from literature. Their abundances share the Galactic [Be/H] values at the low metallicity end but grow slower with [Fe/H] and show a reduced dispersion. This suggests that the scatter observed in the Milky Way could reflect the different \beix\ evolution patterns of different stellar components which are mixed-up in the Galactic halo.