Fluorine Abundances in Local Stellar Populations

TL;DR

This study measures fluorine and sodium abundances in stars from the Galactic thin and thick disks, revealing a larger dispersion in fluorine and providing data to refine chemical evolution models.

Contribution

First fluorine abundance measurements in 12 giants from the Galactic disks, expanding the metallicity range and comparing results with chemical evolution models.

Findings

Fluorine abundance dispersion exceeds sodium's, indicating real variation.

Thin and thick disk stars show similar average [F/Fe] ratios.

Data constrains models at critical metallicity ranges.

Abstract

We present the first fluorine measurements in 12 normal giants belonging to the Galactic thin and thick disks using spectra obtained with the Phoenix infrared spectrometer on the 2.1m telescope at Kitt Peak. Abundances are determined from the (1-0) R9 2.3358 micron feature of the molecule HF. Additionally, sodium abundances are derived in 25 giants in the thin disk, thick disk, and halo using the Na I line at 2.3379 microns. We report fluorine abundances for thin and thick disk stars in the metallicity range -0.7 < [Fe/H] < 0. We add two abundance measurements for stars with [Fe/H] < 0.5 dex which are at a critical metallicity range to constrain models. We find a larger dispersion in fluorine abundances than sodium abundances despite both species having similar overall uncertainties due to atmospheric parameters, suggesting this dispersion is real and not observational. The dispersion is slightly larger in the thick disk than the thin. The thin and thick disk average [F/Fe] for our sample of stars combined with the literature differ by 0.03 dex. The observations are compared to available chemical evolution models.