Barium stars as tracers of s-process nucleosynthesis in AGB stars

Abstract

Barium (Ba) stars help to verify asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star nucleosynthesis models since they experienced pollution from an AGB binary companion and thus their spectra carry the signatures of the slow neutron capture process ($s$ process). For a large number (180) of Ba stars, we searched for AGB stellar models that match the observed abundance patterns. We aim to uncover any systematic deviations of the sample abundances from the predictions of the nucleosynthesis models. We employed three machine learning algorithms as classifiers: a Random Forest method, developed for this work, and the two classifiers used in our previous study. Compared to that work, we also expanded our observational sample with 11 Ba stars available in the supersolar metallicity range. We studied the statistical behaviour of the different $s$-process elements in the observational sample to investigate if the AGB models systematically under- or overpredict the abundances observed in the Ba stars and show the results in the form of violin plots of the residuals between spectroscopic abundances and model predictions. We inspected the correlations between the observed Fe/H the $s$-process elemental abundances, and the residuals. We employed the Zr/Fe and Nb/Fe abundances as a thermometer to constrain the operational temperature that rules the production of these elements in the sample stars, assuming a steady-state $s$ process. We also investigated the mass distribution of the identified polluter AGB stars and the behaviour of the delta parameter, which describes the fraction of accreted AGB material relative to the Ba star envelope. We find a significant trend in the residuals that implies an underproduction of the elements just after the first $s$-process peak (Nb, Mo, and Ru) in the models relative to the observations. This may originate from a neutron-capture process (e.g. the intermediate neutron-capture process, $i$ process) not yet included in the AGB models of metallicity from solar to roughly 1/5 solar, corresponding to the range of the Ba stars. Correlations are found between the residuals of these peculiar elements, suggesting a common origin for the deviations from the models. In addition, there is a weak metallicity dependence of the residuals of these elements. The $s$-process temperatures derived with the Zr/Fe Nb/Fe thermometer have an unrealistic value for the majority of our stars. The most likely explanation is that at least a fraction of these elements are not produced in a steady-state $s$ process, and instead may be due to processes not included in the AGB models. The mass distribution of the identified models confirms that our sample of Ba stars was polluted by low-mass AGB stars (< 4 Most of the matching AGB models require low accreted mass, but a few systems with high accreted mass are needed to explain the observations.