Peculiar hydrogen-deficient carbon stars: strontium-rich stars and the s-process^★

¹ Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Louisiana State University, LA, 70803 Baton Rouge, USA
e-mail: ccour14@lsu.edu
² Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 6 et CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, IAP, 75014 Paris, France

Received: 10 December 2021
Accepted: 13 January 2022

Abstract

Context. R Coronae Borealis (RCB) variables and their non-variable counterparts, the dustless Hydrogen-deficient Carbon (dLHdC) stars have been known to exhibit enhanced s-processed material on their surfaces, especially Sr, Y, and Ba. No comprehensive work has been done to explore the s-process in these types of stars, however one particular RCB star, U Aqr, has been under scrutiny for its extraordinary Sr enhancement.

Aims. We aim to identify RCB and dLHdC stars that have significantly enhanced Sr abundances, such as U Aqr, and use stellar evolution models to begin to estimate the type of neutron exposure that occurs in a typical HdC star.

Methods. We compared the strength of the Sr II 4077 Å spectral line to Ca II H to identify the new subclass of Sr-rich HdCs. We additionally used the structural and abundance information from existing RCB MESA models to calculate the neutron exposure parameter, τ.

Results. We identified six stars in the Sr-rich class. Two are RCBs, and four are dLHdCs. We additionally found that the preferred RCB MESA model has a neutron exposure τ ≃ 0.1 mb⁻¹, which is lower than the estimated τ between 0.15 and 0.6 mb⁻¹ for the Sr-rich star U Aqr found in the literature. We found trends in the neutron exposure corresponding to He-burning shell temperature, metallicity, and assumed s-processing site.

Conclusions. We have found a sub-class of six HdCs known as the Sr-rich class, which tend to lie in the halo, outside the typical distribution of RCBs and dLHdCs. We found that dLHdC stars are more likely to be Sr-rich than RCBs, with an occurrence rate of ~13% for dLHdCs and ~2% for RCBs. This is one of the first potential spectroscopic differences between RCBs and dLHdCs, along with dLHdCs having stronger surface abundances of ¹⁸O. We additionally found neutron exposure trends in our RCB models that will aide in understanding the interplay between model parameters and surface s-process elements.