The Abundance of Lithium in an AGB Star in the Globular Cluster M3 (NGC 5272) [SSA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.01208


A survey of red giants in the globular cluster M3 with the Hydra multi-object spectrograph on the WIYN 3.5-m telescope indicated a prominent Li I 6707 $\AA$ feature in the red giant vZ 1050. Follow-up spectroscopy with the ARC 3.5-m telescope confirmed this observation and yielded a derived abundance of A(Li)$_{NLTE}$ = 1.6 $\pm$ 0.05. In addition, the high oxygen and low sodium abundances measured from the same spectrum suggest that vZ 1050 is a first generation cluster star. The location vZ 1050 above the horizontal branch and blueward of the red giant branch in the cluster’s color-magnitude diagram places vZ 1050 on M3’s asymptotic giant branch. The likely source for the enhanced lithium abundance is the Cameron-Fowler mechanism operating in vZ 1050 itself.

Read this paper on arXiv…

R. Givens and C. Pilachowski
Thu, 4 Aug 16
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