Time evolution of Ce as traced by APOGEE using giant stars observed with the Kepler, TESS and K2 missions

TL;DR

This study investigates the evolution of cerium (Ce) in the Milky Way using asteroseismic, spectroscopic, and astrometric data from Kepler, TESS, K2, APOGEE, and Gaia, revealing its dependence on metallicity, age, and galactic position.

Contribution

It provides new insights into Ce's behavior in the Galaxy by combining asteroseismic and spectroscopic data, highlighting its role in Galactic chemical evolution and stellar yields.

Findings

Younger stars have higher [Ce/Fe] and [Ce/alpha] ratios.

Ce shows a non-monotonic trend with [Fe/H], peaking around -0.2 dex.

Outer Galactic regions exhibit steeper [Ce/Fe] and [Ce/alpha] trends with age.

Abstract

Abundances of s-capture process elements in stars with exquisite asteroseismic, spectroscopic, and astrometric constraints offer a novel opportunity to study stellar evolution, nucleosynthesis, and Galactic chemical evolution. We aim to investigate one of the least studied s-process elements in the literature, Ce, using stars with asteroseismic constraints from the Kepler, K2 and TESS missions. We combine the global asteroseismic parameters derived from precise light curves obtained by the Kepler, K2 and TESS missions with chemical abundances from the APOGEE DR17 survey and astrometric data from the Gaia mission. Finally, we compute stellar ages using the code PARAM. We investigate the different trends of [Ce/Fe] as a function of [Fe/H], [alpha/Fe] and age considering the dependence on the radial position, specially in the case of K2 targets which cover a large Galactocentric range. We, finally, explore the [Ce/alpha] ratios as a function of age in different Galactocentric intervals. The studied trends display a strong dependence of the Ce abundances on [Fe/H] and star formation history. Indeed, the [Ce/Fe] ratio shows a non-monotonic dependence on [Fe/H] with a peak around -0.2 dex. Moreover, younger stars have higher [Ce/Fe] and [Ce/alpha] ratios than older stars, confirming the latest contribution of low- and intermediate-mass asymptotic giant branch stars to the Galactic chemical enrichment. In addition, the trends of [Ce/Fe] and [Ce/alpha] with age become steeper moving towards the outer regions of the Galactic disc, demonstrating a more intense star formation in the inner regions than in the outer regions. Ce is thus a potentially interesting element to help constraining stellar yields and the inside-out formation of the Milky Way disc. However, the large scatter in all the relations studied here, suggests that spectroscopic uncertainties for this element are still too large.