Formation of Carbon-Enhanced Metal-Poor RR Lyrae Stars

Abstract

Carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars are considered to be related to the first generation of stars, and responsible for the chemical evolution of the early Galaxy. More than half of them are in binaries, and could be explained by the binary evolution, but the formation channel of them is still not fully understood. Among the hundreds of CEMP stars, there are nine CEMP RR Lyrae stars identified, and at least seven of which are very likely not binaries. The usual binary star evolution channel is difficult to produce such a single star, particularly that of carbon enrichment. One way in which such a single star might be produced is the merger of a helium white dwarf with a Hertzsprung gap (HG) star. We use a stellar evolution program to calculate the models of the merger remnants, and find that the models can reproduce the observed distribution of these CEMP single RR Lyrae stars in terms of surface temperature, gravity, and carbon abundance. Hence, it is extremely possible that the helium white dwarf and HG star merger model is one of the formation channels of the metal-poor carbon-rich RR Lyrae stars.