The Radcliffe Wave as traced by young open clusters: Stellar parameters, activity indicators, and abundances of solar-type members of eight young clusters

TL;DR

This study investigates the chemical composition and stellar parameters of young open clusters along the Radcliffe Wave to understand its nature and origin, providing detailed spectroscopic data and revealing chemical homogeneity and slight overabundances.

Contribution

It offers the first detailed chemical analysis of stars in clusters tracing the Radcliffe Wave, linking chemical composition with cluster age and position, and enhancing understanding of the wave's formation.

Findings

Clusters have near-solar metallicity with slight subsolar values in some.

Chemical composition correlates with cluster age and position along the Wave.

Neutron-capture elements show a slight overabundance, especially barium.

Abstract

The Radcliffe Wave has only recently been recognised as a about 3 kpc long coherent gas structure encompassing most of the star forming regions in the solar vicinity. Since its discovery, it has been mainly studied from the perspective of dynamics, but a detailed chemical study is necessary to understand its nature and the composition of the natal clouds that gave rise to it. In this paper we used some of the connected young open clusters (age $\lesssim$ 100 Myr) as tracers of the molecular clouds. We performed high-resolution spectroscopy with GIARPS at the TNG of 53 stars that are bona fide members of seven clusters located at different positions along the Radcliffe Wave. We provide radial velocities and atmospheric parameters for all of them. For a subsample consisting of 41 FGK stars we also studied the chromospheric activity and the content of Li, from which we inferred the age of the parent clusters. These values agree with the evolutionary ages reported in the literature. For these FGK stars we determined the chemical abundances for 25 species. Pleiades, ASCC 16 and NGC 7058 exhibit a solar metallicity while Melotte 20, ASCC 19, NGC 2232, and Roslund 6 show a slightly subsolar value ($\approx-$0.1 dex). On average, the clusters show a chemical composition compatible with that of the Sun, especially for $\alpha$- and Fe-peak elements. Neutron-capture elements, on the other hand, present a slight overabundance of about 0.2 dex, specially barium. Finally, considering also ASCC 123, studied by our group in a previous research, we infer a correlation between the chemical composition and the age or position of the clusters along the Wave, demonstrating their physical connection within an inhomogeneous mixing scenario.