Carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) star abundances

The sample includes 147 CEMP-s (and CEMP-r/s) stars, 127 CEMP-no stars, and 31 CEMP stars that are unclassified, based on the currently employed [Ba/Fe] criterion. We confirm previous claims that the distribution of A(C) for CEMP stars is (at least) bimodal, with newly determined peaks centered on A(C)=7.96 (the high-C region) and A(C)=6.28 (the low-C region).

A very high fraction of CEMP-s (and CEMP-r/s) stars belongs to the high-C region, while the great majority of CEMP-no stars resides in the low-C region. However, there exists complexity in the morphology of the A(C)-[Fe/H] space for the CEMP-no stars, a first indication that more than one class of first-generation stellar progenitors may be required to account for their observed abundances. The two groups of CEMP-no stars we identify exhibit clearly different locations in the A(Na)-A(C) and A(Mg)-A(C) spaces, also suggesting multiple progenitors.