Heavy‐Element Abundances in Giant Stars in 47 Tucanae

This research forms part of an investigation into heavy element abundances inAsymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars in various stellar environments. Sevengiant stars in the southern globular cluster 47 Tuc have been observed usingthe Anglo-Australian Telescope. Abundances for five s- and r- process elementshave been determined: the light s-process elements, Y and Zr; the heavys-process elements, La and Nd; and the r-process element Eu. Mean enhancementsin the light s-process, [ls/Fe], of ~+0.6 dex and heavy s-process elements,[hs/Fe], of ~+0.3 dex were determined for all the giant stars. There was nostatistically significant difference between the abundances determined for theRed Giant Branch (RGB) and AGB stars in this study. The results for the RGBstars differ from those obtained by a number of previous studies. However,because of the similar abundance results obtained for the AGB and RGB stars inthis study we believe this provides evidence for previous enrichment of thematerial from which these stars formed