2003/05/16 by Kátia Cunha, K. Cunha, Verne V. Smith +5 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/377023
published as Astron.J. 126 (2003) 1305 · 19 pages, 2 tables, 4 figures. In press to the Astronomical Journal
arxiv created 2003/05/16 · openalex publication_date 2003/08/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The behavior of fluorine with metallicity has not yet been probed in any stellar population. In this work, we present the first fluorine abundances measured outside of the Milky Way from a sample of red giants in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), as well the Galactic globular cluster ω Centauri. The fluorine abundances are derived from vibration-rotation transitions of HF using infrared spectra obtained with the Phoenix spectrograph on the Gemini South 8.1 m telescope. It is found that the abundance ratio of F/O declines as the oxygen abundance decreases. The values of F/O are especially low in the two ω Cen giants; this very low value of F/O probably indicates that 19 F synthesis in asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars is not the dominant source of fluorine in stellar populations. The observed decline in F/O with lower O abundances is in qualitative agreement with what is expected if 19 F is produced via H- and He-burning sequences in very massive stars, with this fluorine then ejected in high mass-loss rate Wolf-Rayet winds. A quantitative comparison of observations with this process awaits results from more detailed chemical evolution models incorporating the yields from Wolf-Rayet winds. Perhaps of more significance is the quantitative agreement between the Galactic and LMC results with predictions from models in which 19 F is produced from neutrino nucleosynthesis during core collapse in supernovae of Type II. The very low values of F/O in ω Cen are also in agreement with neutrino nucleosynthesis models if the "peculiar" star formation history of ω Cen, with two to four distinct episodes of star formation, is considered.