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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2(723), p. L201-L206, 2010

DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/723/2/l201

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Extreme Enhancements of r-process Elements in the Cool Metal-Poor Main-Sequence Star SDSS J2357-0052

Journal article published in 2010 by Wako Aoki, Timothy C. Beer, Timothy C. Beers, Satoshi Honda, Daniela Carollo ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

We report the discovery of a cool metal-poor, main-sequence star exhibiting large excesses of r-process elements. This star is one of two newly discovered cool subdwarfs (effective temperatures of 5000 K) with extremely low metallicity ([Fe/H]<-3) identified from follow-up high-resolution spectroscopy of metal-poor candidates from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. SDSS J2357-0052 has [Fe/H]=-3.4 and [Eu/Fe]=+1.9, and exhibits a scaled solar r-process abundance pattern of heavy neutron-capture elements. This is the first example of an extremely metal-poor, main-sequence star showing large excesses of r-process elements; all previous examples of the large r-process-enhancement phenomena have been associated with metal-poor giants. The metallicity of this object is the lowest, and the excess of Eu ([Eu/Fe]) is the highest, among the r-process-enhanced stars found so far. We consider possible scenarios to account for the detection of such a star, and discuss techniques to enable searches for similar stars in the future. Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, ApJL in press