The barium isotopic fractions in five metal-poor stars

Context. Theory and observations of heavy element nucleosynthesis are in conflict with one-another. Theory states that in the most metal-poor stars, the rapid (r-) neutron-capture nucleosynthetic process would be dominant over the slow (s-) process. The most recent determinations of r- and s-process yields do not support this. Aims. We provide measurements of the Ba isotopic fractions for five metal-poor stars derived with a local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) analysis with 1D model stellar atmospheres. This increases the comparisons with heavy element nucleosynthesis theory. Methods. We use high resolution (R ≡ λ/∆λ = 90 000 − 95 000), very high signal-to-noise (S/N> 500) spectra to determine the fraction of odd Ba isotopes ( fodd) by measuring subtle asymmetries in the profile of the Ba ii line at 4554 Å. We also use two different macroturbulent broadening techniques, Gaussian and radial-tangential, to model the Fe lines of each star, and propagate each technique to model macroturbulent broadening in the Ba 4554 Å line. We conduct a 1D non-LTE (NLTE) treatment of the Fe lines in the red giant HD 122563 and the subgiant HD 140283 in an attempt to improve the fitting. We determine [Ba/Eu] ratios for the two giants in our study, HD 122563 and HD 88609, which can also be used to determine the relative contribution of the s- and r-processes to heavy-element nucleosynthesis, for comparison with fodd