Abundances of classical Cepheids

We propose a statistical method for decomposition of contributions to iron production from various sources: Type II supernovae and the subpopulations of Type Ia supernovae, prompt (their progenitors are short-lived stars with ages lower than >100Myr) and tardy (their progenitors are long-lived stars with ages >100Myr). To do that, we develop a theory of oxygen and iron synthesis that takes into account the influence of the spiral arms on the amount of the above elements synthesized by both Type II supernovae and prompt Type Ia supernovae.

In the framework of the theory, we processed statistically the new, more precise, observational data on Cepheid abundances, which, as is well known, demonstrate non-trivial radial distributions of oxygen and iron in the Galactic disc with bends in the gradients.