The Chemical Composition of Extreme-Velocity Stars

Abstract

Little is known about the origin of the fastest stars in the Galaxy. Our understanding of the Milky Way and surrounding dwarf galaxies chemical evolution history allows us to use the chemical composition of a star to investigate its origin, and say whether a star was formed in-situ or was accreted. However, the fastest stars, the hypervelocity stars, are young and massive and their chemical composition has not yet been analyzed. Though it is difficult to analyze the chemical composition of a massive young star, we are well versed in the analysis of late-type stars. We have used high-resolution ARCES/3.5m Apache Point Observatory, MIKE/Magellan spectra to study the chemical details of 15 late-type hypervelocity stars candidates. With Gaia EDR3 astrometry and spectroscopically determined radial velocities we found total velocities with a range of $274$ - $520$ km s${}^{-1}$ and mean value of $381$ km s${}^{-1}$. Therefore, our sample stars are not fast enough to be classified as Hypervelocity stars, and are what is known as extreme-velocity stars. Our sample has a wide iron abundance range of $-2.5\le [Fe/H]\le -0.9$. Their chemistry indicate that at least 50\% of them are accreted extragalactic stars, with iron-peak elements consistent with prior sub-Chandrasekhar mass type Ia supernova enrichment. Without indication of binary companions, their chemical abundances and orbital parameters are indicative that they are the accelerated tidal debris of disrupted dwarf galaxies.

Accepted for publication at AJ; 23 pages; 6 Figures; 4 Tables

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• A non-interacting Galactic black hole candidate in a binary system with a main-sequence star
• Gaia DR3 in 6D: The search for fast hypervelocity stars and constraints on the Galactic Centre environment
• On the origins of extreme velocity stars as revealed by large-scale Galactic surveys
• High Velocity Stars in SDSS/APOGEE DR17
• Ancient, eclipsing, tidally-locked: A blue lurker progenitor in the population of extreme-velocity star candidates