Abstract
The article presents the consolidated results drawn from the chemical composition studies of Reddy et al. (2012, 2013, 2015, 2016) and Reddy & Lambert (2019), who through the high-dispersion echelle spectra (\(R = 60000\)) of red giant members in a large sample of Galactic open clusters (OCs), derived stellar parameters and chemical abundances for 24 elements by either line equivalent widths or synthetic spectrum analyses. The focus of this article is on the issues with radial-metallicity distribution and the potential chemical tags offered by OCs. Results of these studies confirm the lack of an age–metallicity relation for OCs but argue that such a lack of trend for OCs arise from the limited coverage in metallicity compared to that of field stars which span a wide range in metallicity and age. Results demonstrate that the sample of clusters constituting a steep radial metallicity gradient of slope −0.052 ± 0.011 dex kpc\(^{-1}\) at R\(_\mathrm{gc}<\) 12 kpc are younger than 1.5 Gyr and located close to the Galactic midplane (\(|z|<\,\)0.5 kpc). Whereas the clusters describing a shallow slope of −0.015 ± 0.007 dex kpc\(^{-1}\) at R\(_\mathrm{gc}>\) 12 kpc are relatively old with a striking spread in age and height above the midplane (0.5\(\,<|z|<\,\)2.5 kpc). Results of these studies reveal that OCs and field stars yield consistent radial metallicity gradients if the comparison is limited to samples drawn from the similar vertical heights. The computation of Galactic orbits reveals that the outer disk OCs were actually born inward of 12 kpc but the orbital eccentricity has taken them to present locations very far from their birthplaces. Published results for OCs show that the abundances of the heavy elements La, Ce, Nd and Sm but not so obviously Y and Eu vary from one cluster to another across a sample all having about the solar metallicity. For La, Ce, Nd and Sm the amplitudes of the variations at solar metallicity scale approximately with the main s-process contribution to solar system material. Consideration of published abundances of field stars suggest that such a spread in heavy element abundances is present for the thin and thick disk stars of different metallicity. This result provides an opportunity to chemically tag stars by their heavy elements and to reconstruct dissolved open clusters from the field star population.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Stellar abundance of an element X is measured relative to the solar abundance and is denoted by [X/H] (=log (N\(_{X}/N_{H}\))−log(N\(_{X}/N_{H})\) \(_{\odot }\)). Here N\(_{X}\) and N\(_{H}\) are the number densities of X and hydrogen, respectively, in the star and Sun (\(\odot \)).
IRAF is a general purpose software system for the reduction and analysis of astronomical data distributed by NOAO, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
The adopted interstellar extinctions are (A\(_{V}\), A\(_{K}\), E(V-K), E(J-K))= (3.1, 0.28, 2.75, 0.54)*E(B-V), where E(B-V) is taken from WEBDA.
MOOG was developed and updated by Chris Sneden and originally described in Sneden (1973)
References
Alonso A., Arribas S., Martínez-Roger C. 1999, A&AS, 140, 261
Armillotta L., Krumholz M. R., Fujimoto Y. 2018, MNRAS, 481, 5000
Bensby T., Feltzing S., Oey M. S. 2014, A&A, 562, A71
Cantat-Gaudin T., Donati P., Vallenari A., Sordo R., Bragaglia A., Magrini L. 2016, A&A, 588, 120
Castelli F., Kurucz R. L. 2003, IAU Symposium 210, Modelling of Stellar Atmospheres, Uppsala, Sweden, eds. N.E. Piskunov, W.W. Weiss, and D. F. Gray, 2003, ASP-S210
Cheng J. Y., Rockosi C. M., Morrison H. L. et al. 2012, ApJ, 746, 149
Delgado Mena E., Tsantaki M., Adibekyan V. Zh., Sousa S. G., Santos N. C., González Hernández J. I., Israelian G. 2017, A&A, 606, 94
De Silva G. M., Freeman K. C., Bland-Hawthorn J., et al. 2015, MNRAS, 449, 2604
De Silva G. M., Sneden C., Paulson D. B. et al. 2006, AJ, 131, 455
Dias W. S., Alessi B. S., Moitinho A., Lépine J. R. D. 2002, A&A, 389, 871
Freeman K., Bland-Hawthorn J. 2002, ARA&A, 40, 4875
Friel E. D., Jacobson H. R., & Pilachowski C. A. 2010, AJ, 139, 1942
Gilmore G., Randich S., Asplund M. et al. 2012, The Messenger, 147, 25
Hayden M. R., Holtzman J. A., Bovy J. et al. 2014, AJ, 147, 116
Kubryk M., Prantzos N., Athanassoula E. 2015, A&A, 580, 126
Lambert D. L., Reddy A. B. S. 2016, ApJ, 831, 202
Lamers H. J. G. L. M., Gieles M. 2006, A&A, 455, 17
Lemasle B., François P., Genovali K. et al. 2013, A&A, 558, 31
Luck R. E. 2015, AJ, 150, 88
Luck R. E., Lambert D. L. 2011, AJ, 142, 136
Magrini L., Sestito P., Randich S., Galli D. 2009, A&A, 494, 95
Majewski S. R. 2016 APOGEE Team, APOGEE-2 Team, AN, 337, 863
Minchev I., Chiappini C., Martig M. 2013, A&A, 558, 9
Netopil M., Paunzen E., Heiter U., Soubiran C. 2016, A&A, 585, 150
Pancino E., Carrera R., Rossetti E., Gallart C. 2010, A&A, 511, A56
Reddy A. B. S., Giridhar S., Lambert D. L. 2015, MNRAS, 450, 4301
Reddy A. B. S., Giridhar S., Lambert D. L. 2013, MNRAS, 431, 3338
Reddy A. B. S., Giridhar S., Lambert D. L. 2012, MNRAS, 419, 1350
Reddy A. B. S., Lambert D. L. 2019, MNRAS, 485, 3623
Reddy A. B. S., Lambert D. L., Giridhar S. 2016, MNRAS, 463, 4366
Sestito P., Bragaglia A., Randich S., Pallavicini R., Andrievsky S. M., Korotin S. A. 2008, A&A, 488, 943
Sneden C., 1973, PhD Thesis, Univ. of Texas, Austin
Springel V., White S. D. M., Jenkins A. et al. 2005, Nature, 435, 629
Tull R.G., MacQueen P.J., Sneden C., Lambert D.L. 1995, PASP, 107, 251
Vogelsberger M., Genel S., Springel V. et al. 2014, MNRAS, 444, 1518
Yong D., Carney B. W., Friel E. D. 2012, AJ, 144, 95
Acknowledgements
We thank the referee for helpful comments. This research has made use of the WEBDA database, operated at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Vienna and the NASA ADS, USA. This research has made use of “Aladin sky atlas” developed at CDS, Strasbourg Observatory, France. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article is part of the Topical Collection: Chemical elements in the Universe: Origin and evolution.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Reddy, A.B.S., Giridhar, S. & Lambert, D.L. Galactic chemical evolution and chemical tagging with open clusters. J Astrophys Astron 41, 38 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-020-09658-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-020-09658-3