Barium Stars Across the Milky Way: Probing Their Origins via the GALAH Survey

TL;DR

This study uses the GALAH survey to identify and analyze nearly 3000 barium-rich stars across the Milky Way, revealing multiple formation mechanisms including binary mass transfer and radiative levitation.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale, detailed characterization of barium stars' origins and distributions using extensive survey data and Gaia cross-matching.

Findings

Nearly 3000 new barium-rich stars identified.

Evidence of multiple formation mechanisms including mass transfer and radiative levitation.

Barium stars are found across all Galactic components, with varying properties.

Abstract

Barium stars are unusually enriched in barium ([Ba/Fe] >= 1.0 dex) and not predicted by current Galactic chemical evolution models. Previous observations of barium stars have found evidence that they form through mass transfer from a companion asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star or through radiative levitation. The chemical abundance and kinematic information of barium stars may help constrain AGB stellar nucleosynthesis, binary star evolution, and internal evolutionary processes that affect surface abundances. Using ~450,000 stars from the GALactic Archaeology with Hermes (GALAH) survey, we identify nearly 3000 new barium-rich stars and separate them into hot (Teff > 6000 K) and cool (Teff < 6000 K) populations. Cross-matching with Gaia DR3, we find that 47.7% of our barium stars within 1 kpc have elevated re-normalized unit weight error (RUWE >= 1.4), compared to 16.3% of a comparable sample of the GALAH field, suggesting multiplicity plays an important role in the formation of both populations of barium stars. A subset of hot barium stars exhibit low RUWE (RUWE < 1.2) and [alpha/Fe] < -0.2, supporting radiative levitation as an origin as well. We determine Galactic memberships using both kinematics and chemistry and find that barium stars exist in the thin disk, thick disk, and halo though they are slightly more prevalent at lower metallicities. Overall, we show evidence for barium stars produced by mass transfer and for those produced by radiative levitation, with both formation mechanisms occurring ubiquitously across the Galaxy.