Seminars and Colloquia

Reassessing the low alpha massive sequence stars in Gaia RVSAstrophysics Seminar

by Dr Govind Nandakumar (ARIES, Nainital)

Asia/Kolkata
Auditorium

Auditorium

Description

Abstract:

 The chemical abundances of stars provide powerful constraints on the formation and evolution of the Milky Way. Recently, a population of apparently alpha-depleted young massive stars was identified in the Gaia DR3 spectroscopic catalogue (RVS spectra), motivating chemical-evolution models that invoke a recent gas infall and enhanced star-formation episode in the Galaxy (Recio-Blanco et al. 2023, Spitoni et al. 2023). A similar depletion in magnesium was also reported among massive stars in APOGEE, lending support to the Gaia results. We revisit this population by comparing massive sequence stars selected from Gaia DR3 with independent measurements from APOGEE DR17, GALAH DR4, and Gaia-CNN. In this talk, I will present the results of our investigation into the existence of an alpha-depleted young massive stellar population in Gaia and other high-resolution spectroscopic surveys, and discuss the implications of our findings for proposed models of recent Galactic chemical evolution