Chemical and Kinematic Analysis of CN-strong Metal-poor Field Stars in LAMOST DR3

Abstract

The large amount of chemical and kinematic information available in large spectroscopic surveys has inspired the search for chemically peculiar stars in the field. Though these metal-poor field stars ([Fe/H] < −1) are commonly enriched in nitrogen, their detailed spatial, kinematic, and chemical distributions suggest that various groups may exist, and thus their origin is still a mystery. To study these stars statistically, we increase the sample size by identifying new CN-strong stars with LAMOST DR3 for the first time. We use CN–CH bands around 4000 Å to find CN-strong stars, and further separate them into CH-normal stars (44) and CH-strong (or CH) stars (35). The chemical abundances from our data-driven software and APOGEE DR14 suggest that most CH-normal stars are N-rich, and this cannot be explained by an internal mixing process alone. The kinematics of our CH-normal stars indicate that a substantial fraction of these stars are retrograding, pointing to an extragalactic origin. The chemistry and kinematics of CH-normal stars imply that they may be stars dissolved from globular clusters, or accreted halo stars, or both.