Abstract—Learning about the chemical evolution of the universe is crucial to understanding the formation of the first stars and structure formation in the early universe. To find out how elements are produced via nucleosynthesis and how their relative amounts have evolved with time, abundance trends of stars with different metallicities can be established and compared. In this study, we present a spectrum of a very metal-poor star, HE 2315–4240, with [Fe/H] = −2.9 based on a Magellan/MIKE high-resolution visual light spectrum. The star has a radial velocity of +41.9 km s−1, an effective temperature of 5200 K, a surface gravity of 2.2 dex, and a microturbulence of 1.6 km s−1. The α-elements and the iron peak elements agree well with the abundance trends of other metal-poor halo stars. The low abundance of [Sr/Ba] and [C/Fe] supports the idea that HE 2315–4240 is accreted and formed in a dwarf galaxy. The value of [Ba/Eu] suggests the operation of a limited r-process. The abundance pattern of [Mg/Fe] and [Si/Fe] in HE 2315–4240 and its metallicity indicated that the star formed from gas enriched by a Type II supernova of a massive Pop III star. The abundance pattern fits Population III supernova yields moderately. The star’s kinematic behavior shows that the star has a retrograde orbit and is moving away from the galactic center and out of the galactic disk. This means that although the star is located in the halo of the Milky Way, it didn’t form in the Milky Way but rather formed in a small dwarf galaxy that was later absorbed by the Milky Way.

Keywords—Stars: individual (HE 2315–4240), metal-poor stars, stellar kinematics, nucleosynthesis, chemical evolution, Galactic halo

Cite:Xinuo Wang, "Chemo-Dynamical Abundance Analysis of the Very Metal-Poor Halo Star HE 2315–4240," International Journal of Applied Physics and Mathematics, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 20-34, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).