Paper detail

Chemical compositions of six metal-poor stars in the ultra-faint dwarf spheroidal galaxy Boötes I

Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies recently discovered around the Milky Way (MW) contain extremely metal-poor stars, and might represent the building blocks of low-metallicity components of the MW. Among them, the Boötes I dwarf spheroidal galaxy is of particular interest because of its exclusively old stellar population. We determine chemical compositions of six red giant stars in Boötes I, based on the high-resolution spectra obtained with the High Dispersion Spectrograph mounted on the Subaru Telescope. Abundances of 12 elements, including C, Na, alpha, Fe-peak, and neutron capture elements, were determined for the sample stars. The abundance results were compared to those in field MW halo stars previously obtained using an abundance analysis technique similar to the present study. We confirm the low metallicity of Boo-094 ([Fe/H]=-3.4). Except for this star, the abundance ratios ([X/Fe]) of elements lighter than zinc are generally homogeneous with small scatter around the mean values in the metallicities spanned by the other five stars (-2.7<[Fe/H]<-1.8). Specifically, all of the sample stars with [Fe/H]>-2.7 show no significant enhancement of carbon. The [Mg/Fe] and [Ca/Fe] ratios are almost constant with a modest decreasing trend with increasing [Fe/H] and are slightly lower than the field halo stars. The [Sr/Fe] and [Sr/Ba] ratios also tend to be lower in the Boötes I stars than in the halo stars. Our results of small scatter in the [X/Fe] ratios for elements lighter than zinc suggest that these abundances were homogeneous among the ejecta of prior generation(s) of stars in this galaxy.