Red clump stars of the Milky Way - laboratories of extra-mixing

Abstract

In this work we present the main atmospheric parameters, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen abundances, and 12C/13C ratios determined in a sample of 28 Galactic clump stars. Abundances of carbon were studied using the C2 band at 5086.2 Å. The wavelength interval 7980-8130 Å with strong CN features was analysed in order to determine nitrogen abundances and 12C/13C isotope ratios. The oxygen abundances were determined from the [O I] line at 6300 Å. The mean abundances of C, N and O abundances in the investigated clump stars support our previous estimations that, compared to the Sun and dwarf stars of the Galactic disc, carbon is depleted by about 0.2 dex, nitrogen is enhanced by 0.2 dex and oxygen is close to abundances in dwarfs. The 12C/13C and C/N ratios for galactic red clump stars analysed were compared to the evolutionary models of extra-mixing. The steeper drop of 12C/13C ratio in the model of thermohaline mixing by Charbonnel & Lagarde better reflects the observational data at low stellar masses than the more shallow model of cool bottom processing by Boothroyd & Sackmann. For stars of about 2 Msun masses a modelling of rotationally induced mixing should be considered with rotation of about 250 km s-1 at the time when a star was at the hydrogen-core-burning stage.

8 pages, 7 figures, published in MNRAS 03/2013. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1007.4064

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• The Gaia-ESO Survey: CNO abundances in the open clusters Trumpler 20, NGC 4815, and NGC 6705
• Atmospheric parameters and chemical properties of red giants in the CoRoT asteroseismology fields
• CNO abundances and carbon isotope ratios in evolved stars of the open clusters NGC 2324, NGC 2477, and NGC 3960