On the Origin of Abundance Variations in the Milky Way's High-$\alpha$ Plateau

Abstract

Using multi-element abundances from the SDSS APOGEE survey, we investigate the origin of abundance variations in Milky Way (MW) disk stars on the "high-$\alpha$ plateau," with $-0.5\le [Mg/H]\le -0.1$ and $0.25\le [Mg/Fe]\le 0.35$. The elevated [$\alpha$/Fe] ratios of these stars imply low enrichment contributions from Type Ia supernovae (SNIa), but it is unclear whether their abundance patterns reflect pure core-collapse supernova (CCSN) enrichment. We find that plateau stars with higher [Fe/Mg] ratios also have higher [X/Mg] ratios for other iron-peak elements, suggesting that the [Fe/Mg] variations in the plateau population do reflect variations in the SNIa/CCSN ratio. To quantify this finding, we fit the observed abundance patterns with a two-process model, calibrated on the full MW disk, which represents each star's abundances as the sum of a prompt CCSN process with amplitude $A_{\text{cc}}$ and a delayed SNIa process with amplitude $A_{\text{Ia}}$. This model is generally successful at explaining the observed trends of [X/Mg] with $A_{\text{Ia}}/A_{\text{cc}}$, which are steeper for elements with a large SNIa contribution (e.g., Cr, Ni, Mn) and flatter for elements with low SNIa contribution (e.g., O, Si, Ca). Our analysis does not determine the value of [Mg/Fe] corresponding to pure CCSN enrichment, but it should be at least as high as the upper edge of the plateau at $[Mg/Fe]\approx 0.35$, and could be significantly higher. Compared to the two-process predictions, the observed trends of [X/Mg] with $A_{\text{Ia}}/A_{\text{cc}}$ are steeper for (C+N) but shallower for Ce, providing intriguing but contradictory clues about AGB enrichment in the early disk.

20 pages, 11 figures, updated to ApJ accepted version