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Vasily Belokurov

Publications and source records attributed to Vasily Belokurov.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Snapshots of r-process production in the Milky Way disk

Stars enhanced in heavy neutron capture elements like europium (Eu) provide a window into the rarest and most exotic nucleosynthetic events. Most Eu-enhanced stars discovered thus far are found among metal-poor populations, with $\mathrm{[Fe/H]}<-1.0$. Here, we report the discovery of $17$ vetted Eu-enhanced stars ($\mathrm{[Eu/Fe]}>0.7$) in the Milky Way disk with metallicities in the range $-0.87<\mathrm{[Fe/H]}<-0.21$ identified from among $74\,717$ stars in the GALAH survey. 14 of these stars additionally have $\mathrm{[Ba/Eu]}<0$, marking enhancement from the rapid neutron capture ($r$-) process and making these r-II stars. Included in their number is a star with a remarkably high $\mathrm{[Eu/H]}=1.01\pm0.09$ at $\mathrm{[Fe/H]}=-0.21$. In addition to Eu, all 17 stars show enhancements in other neutron capture elements, especially in Nd, while otherwise appearing chemically consistent with typical disk stars, particularly in their $α$-element abundances. Two of the Eu-enhanced stars exhibit indications of binarity with strong enrichment in Ba and Y, marking potential signatures of the slow or intermediate neutron capture processes. This sample of 17 Eu-enhanced stars, which span both the high- and low-$α$ disks, are valuable tracers of neutron capture processes, including the $r$-process, at high metallicities. Although we use criteria for Eu-enhanced stars typically applied to the halo to enable comparison to literature studies of $r$-process enhanced stars, we propose a new, metallicity-dependent selection for Eu enhancement that is better-suited to the regime of the Galactic disk.

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Gone with the wind? Potential gas inflow in the broad-line region of a QSO at $z=0.287$ traced by time-varying Balmer absorption

We report spectroscopic observations of a remarkable QSO, J115724.80-000455.56 at $z=0.287$ from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey. This QSO exhibits variability in its hydrogen Balmer absorption over a time interval of 10 months in the observed frame between 2021 and 2022. The observed Balmer absorption can be decomposed into two components with distinct kinematics: a non-varying, "stationary" component and a varying, "dynamic" component. Both absorbers have gas column densities of $N_{\rm H}\sim 10^{22}~{\rm cm^{-2}}$ and likely have densities of $n_{\rm H}\gtrsim 10^{8}~{\rm cm^{-3}}$. We inferred small effective physical sizes of $\lesssim 10^{-3}$ pc for the absorbers, which, together with the time variability, suggests that the absorption occurs in the broad-line region (BLR). The reshifted centroid velocities of both absorbers imply an inflow, where the inferred mass inflow rate is comparable to the single-epoch mass accretion rate of this QSO. The 2022 epoch of this QSO further reveals a 10% change in the column density over 2 months, indicating the gas inflow might be continuous. We also obtained new X-ray observations using the $\it Einstein~Probe$, which reveals an X-ray-to-bolometric luminosity ratio significantly below the general AGN population. The X-ray weakness is consistent with strong gas obscuration with $N_{\rm H}= 4.0^{+ 1.6}_{- 1.5}\times10^{23}~{\rm cm^{-2}}$. The substantially higher gas obscuration seen in the X-rays compared to the optical possibly indicates a warm absorber inside the BLR or merger-driven enhancement of the galactic scale obscuration consistent with optical imaging. This QSO might thus represent an active feeding phase after a recent gas-rich merger.

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Bar-induced migration of $ω$ Centauri away from Gaia Sausage-Enceladus

The globular cluster $ω$ Cen has been suggested to have originated in the Gaia Sausage-Enceladus (GSE) merger event, possibly as its nuclear star cluster. However, the present-day orbits of $ω$ Cen and the GSE debris are very different. We investigate the scenario in which $ω$ Cen originated in the GSE and migrated to its current position due to perturbations from the Galactic bar. The [$α$/M] distributions of stars located between the GSE debris and $ω$ Cen in $(L_z,E)$ space tentatively support this scenario, but are not conclusive. We run simulations of the GSE debris and $ω$ Cen in a realistic Milky Way potential with a decelerating bar at various present-day pattern speeds. We find that $ω$ Cen can indeed be traced back to the phase space region occupied by the GSE debris. However, this would likely require a pattern speed of $Ω_\mathrm{b}\lesssim26$ km s$^{-1}$ kpc$^{-1}$, which is much lower than most recent estimates. We conclude that a GSE origin for $ω$ Cen is dynamically and chemically plausible, but only with a re-evaluation of the current consensus on the bar's pattern speed.

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Slow stellar halo rotation as a signature of disc flips and GES-like mergers

The stellar halo of the Milky Way (MW) exhibits a weak net prograde rotational signal ($v_ϕ \lesssim 25$ km~s$^{-1}$), yet its origin remains unexplained. To investigate this, we use the Auriga cosmological simulation suite of MW-mass haloes to probe the rotation of stellar haloes over the redshift range $z_{\mathrm{red}}=0-2.5$. The rotational signal is found to persist over this redshift range. We show that satellite progenitors of the stellar halo exhibit a non-uniform distribution of infall directions, with a tendency to align with the host disc, albeit with significant scatter. Thus, we attribute the net rotation to the anisotropic accretion of satellites. Haloes that host \textit{Gaia}-Enceladus-Sausage (GES)-like substructures exhibit consistently slower rotational velocity, likely due to the head-on, more radial trajectory of the dominant progenitor in such systems. Haloes whose stellar discs have reorientated by $\geq 90^{\circ}$ also exhibit slower rotation, likely because the longer dynamical timescales of haloes prevent them from quickly adjusting to disc reorientations. We also report a correlation between the rotation of stellar and dark matter haloes, suggesting a possible common origin driven by anisotropic accretion. We therefore suggest that the MW experienced a disc flip and has a slowly rotating dark matter halo.

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Neighbors, Not Kin: Kinematic evidence for tidal tails from NGC 7492 along the Sagittarius stream

The formation, extension, and morphology of extra-tidal stars around globular clusters depend on the internal kinematics of the host cluster and the Galactic potential. Tracing the kinematics of faint tidal tails sheds light on their formation and contribution to the Milky Way halo. NGC 7492 is an outer halo globular cluster with conflicting evidence regarding the presence of tidal tails. If present, the tails are expected to be faint and overlap on the sky with the Sagittarius stream, located at a similar heliocentric distance but with distinct kinematics. We carried out a GIRAFFE spectroscopic follow-up of ten fields covering the expected tidal tails of NGC 7492. Gaia parallaxes were used to remove foreground contaminants, while only loose proper-motion constraints were applied in the target selection. Radial velocities and metallicities were derived for more than 700 stars, from the red giant branch to the upper main sequence. Cluster and extra-tidal stars were identified from their proper motions, radial velocities, and metallicities. This population extends at least 1.8 deg from the cluster center, confirming the tidal tails previously detected only photometrically, with positions consistent with particle-spray models of the cluster disruption. The Sagittarius stream is clearly identified through its distinct proper motions, radial velocities, and more metal-rich population. Despite the low spatial density of the extra-tidal stars, their kinematic signature is clearly detected, demonstrating that the tidal tails overlap on the sky with the Sagittarius stream but are physically unrelated. This spectroscopic dataset provides a robust basis for future studies of the tails at larger angular extents and fainter magnitudes.

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Constraining the population of dark matter halo shapes using hierarchical inference with extragalactic stellar streams

Stellar streams, the debris of tidally disrupted satellites, trace their host's gravitational potential and thus probe dark matter halo structure. While six-dimensional phase-space data of Galactic streams enable precise dark matter halo modelling in the Milky Way, streams around external galaxies are typically available only as low surface brightness features without kinematics (i.e. two-dimensional photometric data), providing only weak constraints when considered individually. We present a hierarchical Bayesian framework that infers the population distribution of halo flattening using only projected stream tracks. Streams are forward-modelled in StreaMAX, a new JAX-accelerated particle-spray package that achieves orders of magnitude faster stream generation when compared to traditional methods. For each stream we fit an axisymmetric dark matter halo model and obtain a posterior on the flattening. These posteriors are then combined through hierarchical reweighting to constrain the population distribution. Using mock data, we show that individual fits recover the correct flattening with modest precision and exhibit projection-induced multi-modalities. Nevertheless, aggregating these fits yields accurate and confident constraints on the underlying population distribution of dark matter halo morphologies, clearly distinguishing between oblate, spherical, and prolate populations. The total computational cost scales linearly with sample size. Our results demonstrate that ensembles of purely photometric streams carry sufficient information to constrain dark matter halo shapes in external galaxies at the population level. With the forthcoming samples from Euclid and Rubin/LSST, this approach offers a practical path to population-level inferences of halo morphology without any kinematic measurements.

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Globular cluster abundance patterns inherited from giant molecular clouds

Globular clusters exhibit large star-to-star variations and anticorrelations in their light element abundances that are commonly interpreted in terms of in-cluster self-enrichment, in which ejecta from early-forming cluster stars pollute the gas from which later stars form over millions of years. Yet proposed self-enrichment scenarios suffer from a severe mass-budget problem or invoke exotic stellar populations. Using cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations with a standard chemical enrichment model, we identify a population of giant molecular clouds whose internal abundance patterns reproduce several key globular cluster signatures: large light-element abundance spreads and nitrogen-oxygen anticorrelations at nearly constant iron abundance. These clouds form at the restart of star-formation activity after an earlier starburst, where previously ejected oxygen-rich gas collides with nitrogen-rich galactic gas, and are sites of dense star-cluster formation. In this picture, the chemical abundance patterns of globular clusters need not require extended in-cluster star formation, but can be inherited at birth from chemically structured interstellar gas shaped by the baryon cycle. Globular clusters therefore provide a fossil record of chemical enrichment and gas flows in high-redshift galaxies.

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Constraints on the population level distribution of nearby Dark Matter halo shapes with extragalactic streams

Stellar streams trace the gravitational potential of their host galaxies and provide a sensitive probe of dark matter halo structure. Previously, we developed, and tested on simulated data, a hierarchical Bayesian framework to infer the population level distribution of dark matter halo shapes from ensembles of extragalactic stellar streams with images only. In this work, we apply this pipeline to 32 stellar streams from the STRRINGS catalogue, a curated sample of dynamically cold minor-merger streams detected in deep imaging. Each stream is forward-modelled assuming an axisymmetric halo and fitted using only the projected stream track, yielding posterior constraints on the halo flattening parameter $q$. To account for model mismatch and track systematics, we introduce an additional variance term that inflates the uncertainty on the projected stream track and use it to identify a high quality (gold) subsample of 17 streams whose tracks retain significant constraining power. We then combine the individual posteriors through importance sampling to infer the underlying population distribution of halo flattening. For the \textit{gold} subsample, we infer an oblate population with mean $μ_q \approx 0.72$ and intrinsic scatter $σ_q \approx 0.34$. Streams dominated by additional model variance yield a nearly spherical population inference. The inferred oblate population for the gold sample is broadly consistent with expectations from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. This work provides constraints on dark matter halo flattening from stellar streams beyond the Local Group and establishes a scalable framework for forthcoming large samples from Euclid and Rubin/LSST.

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SchwarMAX: a GPU-friendly Schwarzschild orbit-superposition modelling framework

The Schwarzschild orbit-superposition method is a highly flexible dynamical modelling tool. It constrains the mass distribution of a galaxy using line-of-sight velocity and photometric observations. However, constructing such a dynamical model of a galaxy is computationally expensive. We present SchwarMAX, a new publicly available GPU implementation of the Schwarzschild orbit-superposition method. The GPU-native code is significantly faster than other implementations, with entire model construction taking around a second on GPU A100. Using SchwarMAX, we can explore the distributions of both baryonic and dark matter in a galaxy across a high-dimensional parameter space. We demonstrate its performance using mock integrated-field spectroscopic unit data generated from an N-body simulated barred galaxy. We explore the 12-dimensional space of disc, bar and halo parameters using Markov Chain Monte Carlo. The density profiles and the bar pattern speed of the galaxy are recovered with good accuracy. We show that the code can be applied to barred galaxies across a wide range of inclination angles and can be easily extended to other stellar systems, such as elliptical and dwarf galaxies.

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A hierarchical Bayesian framework for cosmology using Type 1 AGN variability

Independent luminosity-distance probes beyond the Type Ia supernova range are needed to test cosmic expansion at high redshift. Type 1 AGN are abundant at \(z>2\), but their use for cosmology requires standardizable observables with controlled scatter, redshift dependence, and measurement uncertainty. We present a hierarchical Bayesian framework for cosmology using AGN variability, based on the empirical anti-correlation between optical/UV variability amplitude and luminosity. The method targets the moderate-baseline regime of current wide-field time-domain surveys, where individual light curves cannot typically identify the full long-timescale stochastic process, but can constrain finite-window brightness and short-lag variability. Each light curve is fitted independently to obtain posterior samples of these summaries, which are then importance-reweighted under a population model relating variability to luminosity, rest-frame wavelength, intrinsic scatter, and the assumed distance-redshift relation. This framework propagates object-level uncertainty while avoiding repeated light-curve likelihood evaluations during cosmological inference, making catalogue-scale analyses feasible. Using Gaia DR3-like G-band simulations matched to real Gaia cadences, noise properties, and quality cuts, we show that finite-baseline light curves are more robustly summarized by window-averaged brightness and short-lag variability than by the separate long-timescale parameters of stochastic models. End-to-end closure tests recover the injected variability-luminosity relation, intrinsic scatter, and distance-redshift parameters up to the expected calibration degeneracies. This Gaia G-band analysis establishes a proof of concept for AGN-variability distances in the moderate-baseline survey regime, with the main gains expected from Gaia DR4, ZTF, DESI-selected AGN samples, and Rubin/LSST-era data.

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Self-interacting dark matter promotes bar formation in disk galaxies

Despite its remarkable success on large scales, the standard $Λ$CDM paradigm faces persistent small-scale challenges that have motivated alternative models for the dark sector. Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) offers a compelling possibility, in which dark matter particles can scatter off each other. Stellar bars are a ubiquitous feature of disk galaxies across cosmic time. Bars are dynamically coupled to their host galaxy's dark matter halo, and therefore their properties provide a powerful probe of the nature and distribution of dark matter. In this paper, we use idealized, high-resolution $N$-body simulations and analytic calculations based on kinetic theory to study bar formation and evolution in disk galaxies embedded in SIDM halos. We find that compared with collisionless CDM, SIDM produces bars that form earlier and grow to larger amplitudes, even for modest self-interaction cross sections. In several cases, disks that remain stable in CDM, including kinematically hot and dark-matter-dominated disks, develop strong bars in SIDM. This accelerated bar growth occurs because self-interactions broaden the bar-halo resonances and enhance angular momentum transfer from the stellar disk to the halo. We explicitly show that this phenomenon is not related to core formation in SIDM halos. At late times, gravothermal core collapse can raise the central dark matter density enough to weaken or dissolve the bar. These results suggest that the abundance, strength, and redshift evolution of barred galaxies offer a promising observational route to constraining dark matter self-interactions, particularly in light of the growing sample of high-redshift bars revealed by JWST.

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Hide and Seek with Gaia. Detectability of Predicted Thin-Disc Metal-Rich RR Lyrae Binaries in Gaia DR3 and DR4

RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) are classical tracers of old stellar populations, yet growing evidence suggests the presence of a metal-rich ([Fe/H]>-0.5), intermediate-age (2-7 Gyr) sub-population in the Milky Way disc. Binary evolution, particularly stable mass transfer, has been proposed as a viable formation channel, predicting that most metal-rich, intermediate-age (<9 Gyr) RRLs should reside in binaries with orbital periods of ~900-2000 days. However, no genuine RRL binaries have been robustly identified, including in the Gaia DR3 astrometric binary catalogues, despite Gaia being sensitive to the predicted orbital-period range. We investigate whether the lack of detections in Gaia DR3 reflects an intrinsically low binary fraction or instead arises from observational biases. We analyse a carefully selected sample of 100 Gaia DR3 RRLs designed to trace the metal-rich population with thin-disc kinematics and compare them with predictions from binary evolution models. We generate realistic Gaia observation mocks, including variability-induced astrometric biases, and assess the detectability of binaries and the posterior constraints on the hidden binary fraction using astrometric quality indicators, such as RUWE, and a robust Bayesian inference. While current uncertainties prevent a definitive rejection of a high fraction of hidden binaries, our results reveal tensions between existing binary evolution predictions and the Gaia DR3 non-detections. This suggests either the presence of unaccounted systematics in the modelling of Gaia observations or the need to revise assumptions in binary evolution models. We predict that Gaia DR4 will significantly improve the binary detectability and provide powerful new constraints on the post-interaction binary populations.

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Enhanced rates of stellar radial migration in gas-rich discs at high redshift

Radial migration and dynamical heating redistribute stars within galactic discs and thereby modify the chemo-kinematic structure of their host galaxies. Usually, these secular processes are studied in N-body and hydrodynamical simulations of Milky Way analogues with stellar-dominated discs. In contrast, discs at high redshift are gas-rich, which may qualitatively change how secular evolution proceeds. We use the Nexus framework to construct and evolve a suite of isolated galaxies with fixed halo and disc mass but varying initial disc gas fraction, from 0% to 100%. We show that in gas-rich models, the root-mean-square change in stellar angular momentum is up to a factor of two larger than in gas-poor analogues and is accompanied by stronger radial and vertical heating, leading to enhanced radial mixing. We further dissect the role of gas in specific migration channels. For bar-driven migration, corotation resonance dragging dominates in gas-poor discs, whereas in gas-rich discs, stars more readily reach and accumulate at the outer Lindblad resonance, which acts as a barrier. The high radial mixing efficiency in gas-rich phases can flatten the stellar metallicity gradient relative to that of the initial gaseous disc within only a few orbital timescales. Together, these results imply that radial mixing in early, gas-rich discs is substantially more vigorous than in late-time, gas-poor discs, naturally producing distinct evolutionary tracks for chemically bimodal discs such as that of the Milky Way.

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A Quadruple Excess in Wide Binary Systems: Evidence for Correlated Binary Formation

Understanding the multiplicity of stellar systems and the correlations between their hierarchical components provides crucial insights into star formation processes. If binary companions form independently in each component of a wide binary (WB), the fraction of quadruple systems, i.e., 2+2 configurations where both components are themselves close binaries (CBs), should equal the product of individual CB fractions. Using \textit{Gaia} DR3 radial velocity spectroscopy (RVS) data for WB systems, we measure the CB fraction $p$ and quadruple fraction $P_{2+2}$, suggesting an enhancement factor $κ= P_{2+2}/p^2 = 2.34_{-0.11}^{+0.12}$, significantly exceeding unity expected under a statistical model of independence. We confirm the significance of this excess by performing two sets of tests: (1) shuffling WB pairings while preserving the overall $ΔG$ distribution shows no significant enhancement, ruling out selection effects; (2) simulations preserving the spectral type (temperature-dependent) CB fraction also yield the same null excess. When examined as a function of WB separation, the enhancement remains strong at separations $\leq 5\,000$ AU, but shows a decline towards unity at the widest separations ($\geq 10\,000$ AU). An independent proper motion anomaly (PMa) consistency check confirms the enhancement, suggesting a similar value. We further find that the enhancement declines with increasing peculiar velocity, suggesting that dynamical processing in older or dynamically hotter populations may transform 2+2 quadruples into triples over time. Our results provide strong evidence for correlated binary formation processes operating in WB systems.

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The erasure of Galactic bar resonances by dark matter subhaloes

In the context of increasing appreciation for the coupling between the Galactic bar and the halo, we introduce a new framework using stars trapped in resonance with the bar to probe the Galactic dark matter subhalo population. Since resonant stars occupy a finite width in action space, perturbations from subhaloes can shift a star's actions beyond this width, causing them to circulate out of resonance. Physically, the dark substructure in the Milky Way may dissolve, puff-up, or re-order the resonance features in the stellar halo. To explore the utility of this framework, we treat individual encounters in the impulse approximation and model their cumulative effect as diffusion in the relevant action. The resulting diffusion coefficient allows us to link the survival of resonant populations to the subhalo mass function, whose properties depend on the particle nature of dark matter. Test particle integration validates the impulse treatment for low-mass subhaloes and quantifies its regime of applicability. For a Milky Way-like bar, we find individual subhaloes with $M<10^7$ M$_{\odot}$ have negligible impact on stars in co-rotation resonance, where as the full cold dark matter (CDM) population could erase the resonance over the bar's lifetime. The persistence of resonances therefore implies a suppression of the local subhalo density to less than 1/3 of CDM expectations, consistent with tidal disruptions and previous literature. The narrow widths of higher-order resonances will increase the constraining power of this framework, and therefore motivates searches for bar-resonant halo features in observational data.

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The THESAN-ZOOM project: Mystery N/O more -- uncovering the origin of peculiar chemical abundances and a not-so-fundamental metallicity relation at $3<z<12$

We present an analysis of metallicities and chemical abundances at $3 -0.6$) without the need for exotic yields in our chemical network. Instead, bursty star formation naturally generates order-of-magnitude excursions in N/O on $\lesssim$100 Myr timescales due to temporally differential galactic winds; after a starburst, stellar feedback expels gas, leaving a large population of asymptotic-giant-branch stars to dominate the enrichment of the relatively low-mass interstellar medium. NRGs lie below the main sequence and typically exhibit $\mathrm{EW}[H$β$]\lesssim40$ Å, in apparent tension with observed high-EW NRGs. This tension is reconciled if observed NRGs are in the initial stages of a subsequent starburst, illuminating previously enriched gas, which is supported by the finding of high SFR surface density nitrogen-rich giant molecular clouds.

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Multiple Populations and a CH Star Found in the 300S Globular Cluster Stellar Stream

Milky Way globular clusters (GCs) display chemical enrichment in a phenomenon called multiple stellar populations (MSPs). While the enrichment mechanism is not fully understood, there is a correlation between a cluster's mass and the fraction of enriched stars found therein. However, present-day GC masses are often smaller than their masses at the time of formation due to dynamical mass loss. In this work, we explore the relationship between mass and MSPs using the stellar stream 300S. We present the chemical abundances of eight red giant branch member stars in 300S with high-resolution spectroscopy from Magellan/MIKE. We identify one enriched star characteristic of MSPs and no detectable metallicity dispersion, confirming that the progenitor of 300S was a globular cluster. The fraction of enriched stars (12.5\%) observed in our 300S stars is less than the 50\% of stars found enriched in Milky Way GCs of comparable present-day mass ($\sim10^{4.5}$\msun). We calculate the mass of 300S's progenitor and compare it to the initial masses of intact GCs, finding that 300S aligns well with the trend between the system mass at formation and enrichment. 300S's progenitor may straddle the critical mass threshold for the formation of MSPs and can therefore serve as a benchmark for the stellar enrichment process. Additionally, we identify a CH star, with high abundances of \textit{s}-process elements, probably accreted from a binary companion. The rarity of such binaries in intact GCs may imply stellar streams permit the survival of binaries that would otherwise be disrupted.

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JADES: the chemical enrichment pattern of distant galaxies -- $α$ enhancement, silicon depletion, and iron enhancement

We present gas-phase abundances of carbon (C), $α$-elements (O, Ne, Si, and Ar) and iron (Fe) obtained from stacked spectra of high-$z$ star-forming galaxies with the deep Near Infrared Spectrograph medium-resolution data from the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. Our 564 sources at $z=4$--7 have a median stellar mass of $\log(M_{*}/M_{\odot})=8.46$ and a median star-formation rate of $\log(\mathrm{SFR}/M_{\odot}\,\mathrm{yr^{-1}})=0.30$, placing them close to the star-formation main sequence. We find that the stacked spectrum of all our 564 sources has relatively low [C/O]$=-0.70$, moderate [Ne/O]$=-0.09$, and low [Ar/O]$=-0.28$ values at a low gas-phase metallicity of $12+\log(\mathrm{O/H})=7.71$ ($Z\sim 0.1~Z_\odot$), suggesting dominant yields of core-collapse supernovae evolved from massive stars. The detection of a weak SiIII] emission line in our stacked spectrum provides a silicon-to-oxygen abundance ratio of [Si/O]$=-0.63$, which is lower than that of stars in the Milky Way disc and lower than expected by chemical evolution models, suggesting silicon depletion onto dust grains. Likewise, this Si/O value is lower than that we newly derive for two individual $z>6$ galaxies (GN-z11 and RXCJ2248) with negligible dust attenuation. By performing spectral stacking in bins of $M_{*}$, SFR, specific SFR (sSFR), and ultra-violet (UV) continuum slope $β_{\mathrm{UV}}$, we identify [FeIII] line detections in the high-sSFR bin and the blue-$β_{\mathrm{UV}}$ bin, both of which exhibit supersolar Fe/O ratios, while their C/O, Ar/O, and Si/O ratios are comparable to those of the all-sources stack. Our findings support a chemically young gas composition with rapid dust depletion in the general population of high-$z$ star-forming galaxies, while raising the possibility of anomalous, selective Fe/O enhancement at the very early epoch of star formation.

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