Jurassic: A Chemically Anomalous Structure in the Galactic Halo

Abstract

Detailed elemental-abundance patterns of giant stars in the Galactic halo measured by APOGEE-2 have revealed the existence of a unique and significant stellar sub-population of silicon-enhanced ([Si/Fe] +0.5) metal-poor stars, spanning a wide range of metallicities (−1.5 [Fe/H] −0.8). Stars with over-abundances in [Si/Fe] are of great interest because these have very strong silicon ( 28 Si) spectral features for stars of their metallicity and evolutionary stage, offering clues about rare nucleosynthetic pathways in globular clusters (GCs). Si-rich field stars have been conjectured to have been evaporated from GCs, however, the origin of their abundances remains unclear, and several scenarios have been offered to explain the anomalous abundance ratios. These include the hypothesis that some of them were born from a cloud of gas previously polluted by a progenitor that underwent a specific and peculiar nucleosynthesis event, or due to mass transfer from a previous evolved companion. However, those scenarios do not simultaneously explain the wide gamut of chemical species that are found in Si-rich stars. Instead, we show that the present inventory of such unusual stars, as well as their relation to known halo substructures (including the in-situ halo, Gaia-Enceladus, the Helmi Stream(s), and Sequoia, among others) is still incomplete. We report the chemical abundances of the iron-peak (Fe), the light-(C and N), the α− (O and Mg), the odd-Z (Na and Al), and the s-process (Ce and Nd) elements of 55 newly identified Si-rich field stars (among more than ∼600,000 APOGEE-2 targets), that exhibit over-abundances of [Si/Fe] as extreme as those observed in some Galactic GCs, and are relatively cleanly from other stars in the [Si/Fe]-[Fe/H] plane. This new census confirms the presence of a statistically significant and chemically-anomalous structure in the inner halo: Jurassic. The chemo-dynamical properties of the Jurassic structure is consistent with it being the tidally disrupted remains of GCs, easily distinguished by an over-abundance of [Si/Fe] among Milky Way populations or satellites.

The search for extratidal star candidates around Galactic globular clusters NGC 2808, NGC 6266, and NGC 6397 with Gaia DR2 astrometry

“…A complete census of potential extratidal structures in the outskirts of GCs could help to provide a better understanding of the nature of the inner and outer stellar halo. In general, the light-element abundances of cluster stars are key to revealing the origin of halo field stars with unique chemical signatures throughout the MW (this is the so-called "chemical-tagging" method, see e.g., Martell & Grebel 2010;Fernández-Trincado et al 2019c,a, 2020a. In this sense, the Gaia data release 2 (Gaia Collaboration et al 2018, hereafter, DR2) astrometry allows us to achieve a homogeneous exploration in the immediate vicinity around GCs to probe the existence or absence of potential extratidal stars for future spectroscopic follow-ups.…”