The R-Process Alliance: Chemical Abundance Patterns of r-Process Enhanced Metal-Poor Stars Associated with Chemo-Dynamically Tagged Group
By: Jessica Agnos
Department: Physics & Astronomy
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Charli Sakari
The heaviest elements in the periodic table are created through the rapid (r-) neutron capture process. Metal-poor stars that are enhanced in r-process elements like Eu provide valuable constraints on early r-process nucleosynthesis and the early assembly history of the Milky Way. In its first four data releases, the R-Process Alliance (RPA) has discovered hundreds of r-process enhanced metal-poor stars in the Milky Way. This poster presents detailed abundance patterns of three of the most highly r-process enhanced stars, the so-called r-II stars. These three stars have been kinematically linked to other stars, meaning they are each part of a chemo-dynamically tagged group (CDTG). These CDTGs may be the remnants of accreted satellite galaxies or disrupted star clusters. This poster shows how the abundances of these r-II stars are important to constrain early r-process nucleosynthesis and help us to understand the formation sites of r-II stars in the Milky Way.