Chemical abundances of three new Ba stars from the Keck/HIRES spectra

TL;DR

This study analyzes high-resolution spectra of 18 candidate Ba stars, identifying three new Ba stars and examining their elemental abundances, revealing similarities with thin disk stars and insights into their companion status.

Contribution

First detailed abundance analysis of 18 Ba candidates using Keck/HIRES spectra, discovering three new Ba stars and comparing their chemical properties with known populations.

Findings

Three new Ba stars identified, including two giants and one subgiant.

Abundance patterns similar to thin disk stars for alpha, odd, and iron-peak elements.

Some Ba stars show evidence of stellar or sub-stellar companions.

Abstract

Based on high resolution, high signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio spectra from Keck/HIRES, we have determined abundances of 20 elements for 18 Ba candidates. The parameter space of these stars are in the range of 4880 $\leq$ $\rm{T_{eff}}$ $\leq$ 6050 K, 2.56 $\leq$ log $g$ $\leq$ 4.53 dex and -0.27 $\leq$ [Fe/H] $\leq$ 0.09 dex. It is found that four of them can be identified as Ba stars with [s/Fe] $>$ 0.25 dex (s: Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, La, Ce and Nd), and three of them are newly discovered, which includes two Ba giants (HD 16178 and HD 22233) and one Ba subgiant (HD 2946). Our results show that the abundances of $\alpha$, odd and iron-peak elements (O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, Mn, Ni and Cu) for our program stars are similar to those of the thin disk, while the distribution of [hs/ls] (hs: Ba, La, Ce and Nd, ls: Sr, Y and Zr) ratios of our Ba stars is similar to those of the known Ba objects. None of the four Ba stars show clear enhancement in carbon including the known CH subgiant HD 4395. It is found that three of the Ba stars present clear evidences of hosting stellar or sub-stellar companions from the radial velocity data.