Search

The spatial distribution of elemental abundances and their time evolution are among the major constraints to disentangle the scenarios of formation and evolution of the Galaxy. We used the sample of open clusters available in the final release of the Gaia-ESO survey to trace the Galactic radial abundance and abundance to iron ratio gradients, and their time evolution. We selected member stars in 62 open clusters, with ages from 0.1 to about 7~Gyr, located in the Galactic thin disc at Galactocentric radii from about 6 to 21~kpc. We analysed the shape of the resulting [Fe/H] gradient, the average gradients [El/H] and [El/Fe] combining elements belonging to four different nucleosynthesis channels, and their individual abundance and abundance ratio gradients. We also investigated the time evolution of the gradients dividing open clusters in three age bins. The[Fe/H] gradient has a slope of -0.054 dex~kpc-1. We saw different behaviours for elements belonging to different channels. We found that the youngest clusters in the inner disc have lower metallicity than their older counterpart and they outline a flatter gradient. We considered some possible explanations, including the effects of gas inflow and migration. We suggested that it might be a bias introduced by the standard spectroscopic analysis producing lower metallicities in low gravity stars. To delineate the shape of the `true' gradient, we should limit our analysis to stars with low surface gravity logg>2.5 and xi, 25 pages, 14 figures and 4 tables in the main text, 3 figures and 7 tables in the Appendix. Accepted for publication in A&A

Full list of authors: Gilmore, G.; Randich, S.; Worley, C. C.; Hourihane, A.; Gonneau, A.; Sacco, G. G.; Lewis, J. R.; Magrini, L.; Francois, P.; Jeffries, R. D.; Koposov, S. E.; Bragaglia, A.; Alfaro, E. J.; Allende Prieto, C.; Blomme, R.; Korn, A. J.; Lanzafame, A. C.; Pancino, E.; Recio-Blanco, A.; Smiljanic, R.; Van Eck, S.; Zwitter, T.; Bensby, T.; Flaccomio, E.; Irwin, M. J.; Franciosini, E.; Morbidelli, L.; Damiani, F.; Bonito, R.; Friel, E. D.; Vink, J. S.; Prisinzano, L.; Abbas, U.; Hatzidimitriou, D.; Held, E., V; Jordi, C.; Paunzen, E.; Spagna, A.; Jackson, R. J.; Maiz Apellaniz, J.; Asplund, M.; Bonifacio, P.; Feltzing, S.; Binney, J.; Drew, J.; Ferguson, A. M. N.; Micela, G.; Negueruela, I; Prusti, T.; Rix, H-W; Vallenari, A.; Bergemann, M.; Casey, A. R.; de Laverny, P.; Frasca, A.; Hill, V; Lind, K.; Sbordone, L.; Sousa, S. G.; Adibekyan, V; Caffau, E.; Daflon, S.; Feuillet, D. K.; Gebran, M.; Gonzalez Hernandez, J., I; Guiglion, G.; Herrero, A.; Lobel, A.; Montes, D.; Morel, T.; Ruchti, G.; Soubiran, C.; Tabernero, H. M.; Tautvaisiene, G.; Traven, G.; Valentini, M.; Van der Swaelmen, M.; Villanova, S.; Vazquez, C. Viscasillas; Bayo, A.; Biazzo, K.; Carraro, G.; Edvardsson, B.; Heiter, U.; Jofre, P.; Marconi, G.; Martayan, C.; Masseron, T.; Monaco, L.; Walton, N. A.; Zaggia, S.; Borsen-Koch, V. Aguirre; Alves, J.; Balaguer-Nunez, L.; Barklem, P. S.; Barrado, D.; Bellazzini, M.; Berlanas, S. R.; Binks, A. S.; Bressan, A.; Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R.; Casagrande, L.; Casamiquela, L.; Collins, R. S.; D'Orazi, V; Dantas, M. L. L.; Debattista, V. P.; Delgado-Mena, E.; Di Marcantonio, P.; Drazdauskas, A.; Evans, N. W.; Famaey, B.; Franchini, M.; Fremat, Y.; Fu, X.; Geisler, D.; Gerhard, O.; Solares, E. A. Gonzalez; Grebel, E. K.; Gutierrez Albarran, M. L.; Jimenez-Esteban, F.; Jonsson, H.; Khachaturyants, T.; Kordopatis, G.; Kos, J.; Lagarde, N.; Ludwig, H-G; Mahy, L.; Mapelli, M.; Marfil, E.; Martell, S. L.; Messina, S.; Miglio, A.; Minchev, I; Moitinho, A.; Montalban, J.; Monteiro, M. J. P. F. G.; Morossi, C.; Mowlavi, N.; Mucciarelli, A.; Murphy, D. N. A.; Nardetto, N.; Ortolani, S.; Paletou, F.; Palous, J.; Pickering, J. C.; Quirrenbach, A.; Fiorentin, P. Re; Read, J., I; Romano, D.; Ryde, N.; Sanna, N.; Santos, W.; Seabroke, G. M.; Spina, L.; Steinmetz, M.; Stonkute, E.; Sutorius, E.; Thevenin, F.; Tosi, M.; Tsantaki, M.; Wright, N.; Wyse, R. F. G.; Zoccali, M.; Zorec, J.; Zucker, D. B.-- This is an Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., Context. The Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey is an ambitious project designed to obtain astrophysical parameters and elemental abundances for 100 000 stars, including large representative samples of the stellar populations in the Galaxy, and a well-defined sample of 60 (plus 20 archive) open clusters. We provide internally consistent results calibrated on benchmark stars and star clusters, extending across a very wide range of abundances and ages. This provides a legacy data set of intrinsic value, and equally a large wide-ranging dataset that is of value for the homogenisation of other and future stellar surveys and Gaia's astrophysical parameters. Aims. This article provides an overview of the survey methodology, the scientific aims, and the implementation, including a description of the data processing for the GIRAFFE spectra. A companion paper introduces the survey results. Methods. Gaia-ESO aspires to quantify both random and systematic contributions to measurement uncertainties. Thus, all available spectroscopic analysis techniques are utilised, each spectrum being analysed by up to several different analysis pipelines, with considerable effort being made to homogenise and calibrate the resulting parameters. We describe here the sequence of activities up to delivery of processed data products to the ESO Science Archive Facility for open use. Results. The Gaia-ESO Survey obtained 202 000 spectra of 115 000 stars using 340 allocated VLT nights between December 2011 and January 2018 from GIRAFFE and UVES. © G. Gilmore et al. 2022. Conclusions. The full consistently reduced final data set of spectra was released through the ESO Science Archive Facility in late 2020, with the full astrophysical parameters sets following in 2022. A companion article reviews the survey implementation, scientific highlights, the open cluster survey, and data products., Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. Public access to the data products is via the ESO SAF, and the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell’ Istruzione, dell’ Università’ e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant “Premiale VLT 2012”. The project presented here benefited in development from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. R.S. acknowledges support from the National Science Centre, Poland (2014/15/B/ST9/03981). This work was partly supported by the INAF grant for mainstream projects: “Enhancing the legacy of the Gaia-ESO Survey for open cluster science”. F.J.E. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO/FEDER through the grant AYA2017-84089 and MDM-2017-0737 at Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu, and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 824064 through the ESCAPE – the European Science Cluster of Astronomy and Particle Physics ESFRI Research Infrastructures project. T.B. was funded by the “The New Milky Way” project grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. S.R.B. acknowledges support by the Spanish Government under grants AYA2015-68012-C2-2-P and PGC2018-093741-B-C21/C22 (MICIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). W.J.S. acknowledges CAPES for a PhD studentship. J.M.A. acknowledges support from the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through grants AYA2013-40611-P, AYA2016-75931-C2-2-P, and PGC2018-095049-B-C22. T.M. and others from STAR institute, Liege, Belgium are grateful to Belgian F.R.S.-FNRS for support, and are also indebted for an ESA/PRODEX Belspo contract related to the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium and for support through an ARC grant for Concerted Research Actions financed by the Federation Wallonie-Brussels.. This research has been partially supported by the following grants: MIUR Premiale “Gaia-ESO survey” (PI S. Randich), MIUR Premiale “MiTiC: Mining the Cosmos” (PI B. Garilli), the ASI-INAF contract 2014-049-R.O: “Realizzazione attività tecniche/scientifiche presso ASDC” (PI Angelo Antonelli), Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, progetto: “Know the star, know the planet” (PI E. Pancino), and Progetto Main Stream INAF: “Chemo-dynamics of globular clusters: the Gaia revolution” (PI E. Pancino). V.A. acknowledges the support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through Investigador FCT contract nr. IF/00650/2015/CP1273/CT0001. A.J.K. acknowledges support by the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA). A.B. acknowledges support by ANID, – Millennium Science Initiative Program – NCN19_171, and FONDECYT regular 1190748. E.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) through project MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu” – Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA). T.Z. acknowledges financial support of the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P1-0188) and the European Space Agency (Prodex Experiment Arrangement No. C4000127986). P.J. acknowledges support FONDECYT Regular 1200703. The work of I.N. is partially supported by the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades under grant PGC2018-093741-B-C21 (MICIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). Funding for this work has been provided by the ARC Future Fellowship FT160100402. C.A.P. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Government through research grants MINECO AYA 2014-56359-P, MINECO AYA2017-86389-P, and MICINN PID2020-117493GB-I00. S.F. was supported by the grants 2011-5042 and 2016-03412 from the Swedish Research Council and the project grant “The New Milky Way” from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. C.A.S.U. is supported through STFC grants: ST/H004157/1, ST/J00541X/1, ST/M007626/1, ST/N005805/1, ST/T003081/1. Work reported here benefited from support through the GREAT-ITN FP7 project Grant agreement ID: 264895. D.K.F. acknowledges funds from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in the framework of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the grant 2016-03412 from the Swedish Research Council. A.H. acknowledges support from the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and ERD Funds through grants PGC-2018-091 3741-B-C22 and CEX2019-000920-S. X.F. acknowledges the support of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation 2020M670023. M.L.L.D. acknowledges the Polish NCN grant number 2019/34/E/ST9/00133. Part of this work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 138713538 – SFB 881 (“The Milky Way System”, subproject A09). M.Z. acknowledges support from the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) grants: FONDECYT Regular 1191505, Millennium Institute of Astrophysics ICN12-009, BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies AFB-170002. R.B. acknowledges support from the project PRIN-INAF 2019 “Spectroscopically Tracing the Disk Dispersal Evolution”. H.M.T. acknowledges financial support from the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades through projects PID2019-109522GB-C51,54/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and the Centre of Excellence “María de Maeztu” award to Centro de Astrobiología (MDM-2017-0737). J.I.G.H. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) project AYA2017-86389-P, and also from the Spanish MICINN under 2013 Ramѳn y Cajal program RYC-2013-14875. V.P.D. is supported by STFC Consolidated grant ST/R000786/1. N.L. acknowledges financial support from “Programme National de Physique Stellaire” (PNPS) and the “Programme National Cosmology et Galaxies (PNCG)” of CNRS/INSU, France. A.R.C. is supported in part by the Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE190100656). Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. P.S.B. is supported by the Swedish Research Council through individual project grants with contract Nos. 2016-03765 and 2020-03404. A.M. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 772293 – project ASTEROCHRONOMETRY). J.P. was supported by the project RVO: 67985815. E.D.M. acknowledges the support from FCT through the research grants UIDB/04434/2020 & UIDP/04434/2020 and through Investigador FCT contract IF/00849/2015/CP1273/CT0003. This work was (partially) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (MICIU/FEDER, UE) through grant RTI2018-095076-B-C21, and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia 'María de Maeztu’) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. S.L.M. acknowledges the support of the UNSW Scientia Fellowship program and the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project grant DP180101791. GT acknowledges financial support of the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. P1-0188) and the European Space Agency (Prodex Experiment Arrangement No. C4000127986). S.G.S acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract nr. CEECIND/00826/2018 and POPH/FSE (EC). H.G.L. acknowledges financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 138713538 – SFB 881 (“The Milky Way System”, subproject A04). This work was (partially) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (MICIU/FEDER, UE) through grant RTI2018-095076-B-C21, and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia ’María de Maeztu’) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. T.K. is supported by STFC Consolidated grant ST/R000786/1. M.V. acknowledges the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, project number: 428473034). T.M. is supported by a grant from the Fondation ULB. We acknowledge financial support from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, from project AYA2016-79425-C3-1-P and PID2019-109522GB-C5[4]/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen). D.G. gratefully acknowledges support from the Chilean Centro de Excelencia en Astrofísica y Tecnologías Afines (CATA) BASAL grant AFB-170002. D.G. also acknowledges financial support from the Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Universidad de La Serena through the Programa de Incentivo a la Investigación de Académicos (PIA-DIDULS). A. Lobel acknowledges support in part by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office under contract No. BR/143/A2/BRASS. We acknowledge financial support from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, from project AYA2016-79425-C3-1-P and PID2019-109522GB-C5[4]/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. A.M. acknowledges the support from the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Portuguese Strategic Programme UID/FIS/00099/2019 for CENTRA. T.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through the Spanish State Research Agency, under the Severo Ochoa Program 2020-2023 (CEX2019-000920-S). E.J.A. acknowledges funding from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de An- dalucía (SEV-2017-0709).

Full list of authors: Randich, S.; Gilmore, G.; Magrini, L.; Sacco, G. G.; Jackson, R. J.; Jeffries, R. D.; Worley, C. C.; Hourihane, A.; Gonneau, A.; Vazquez, C. Viscasillas; Franciosini, E.; Lewis, J. R.; Alfaro, E. J.; Allende Prieto, C.; Bensby, T.; Blomme, R.; Bragaglia, A.; Flaccomio, E.; Francois, P.; Irwin, M. J.; Koposov, S. E.; Korn, A. J.; Lanzafame, A. C.; Pancino, E.; Recio-Blanco, A.; Smiljanic, R.; Van Eck, S.; Zwitter, T.; Asplund, M.; Bonifacio, P.; Feltzing, S.; Binney, J.; Drew, J.; Ferguson, A. M. N.; Micela, G.; Negueruela, I; Prusti, T.; Rix, H-W; Vallenari, A.; Bayo, A.; Bergemann, M.; Biazzo, K.; Carraro, G.; Casey, A. R.; Damiani, F.; Frasca, A.; Heiter, U.; Hill, V; Jofre, P.; de Laverny, P.; Lind, K.; Marconi, G.; Martayan, C.; Masseron, T.; Monaco, L.; Morbidelli, L.; Prisinzano, L.; Sbordone, L.; Sousa, S. G.; Zaggia, S.; Adibekyan, V; Bonito, R.; Caffau, E.; Daflon, S.; Feuillet, D. K.; Gebran, M.; Gonzalez Hernandez, J., I; Guiglion, G.; Herrero, A.; Lobel, A.; Maiz Apellaniz, J.; Montes, D.; Morel, T.; Soubiran, C.; Spina, L.; Tabernero, H. M.; Traven, G.; Valentini, M.; Van der Swaelmen, M.; Villanova, S.; Wright, N. J.; Abbas, U.; Borsen-Koch, V. Aguirre; Alves, J.; Balaguer-Nunez, L.; Barklem, P. S.; Barrado, D.; Berlanas, S. R.; Binks, A. S.; Bressan, A.; Capuzzo-Dolcetta, R.; Casagrande, L.; Casamiquela, L.; Collins, R. S.; D'Orazi, V; Dantas, M. L. L.; Debattista, V. P.; Delgado-Mena, E.; Di Marcantonio, P.; Drazdauskas, A.; Evans, N. W.; Famaey, B.; Franchini, M.; Fremat, Y.; Friel, E. D.; Fu, X.; Geisler, D.; Gerhard, O.; Solares, E. A. Gonzalez; Grebel, E. K.; Gutierrez Albarran, M. L.; Hatzidimitriou, D.; Held, E., V; Jimenez-Esteban, F.; Jonsson, H.; Jordi, C.; Khachaturyants, T.; Kordopatis, G.; Kos, J.; Lagarde, N.; Mahy, L.; Mapelli, M.; Marfil, E.; Martell, S. L.; Messina, S.; Miglio, A.; Minchev, I; Moitinho, A.; Montalban, J.; Monteiro, M. J. P. F. G.; Morossi, C.; Mowlavi, N.; Mucciarelli, A.; Murphy, D. N. A.; Nardetto, N.; Ortolani, S.; Paletou, F.; Palous, J.; Paunzen, E.; Pickering, J. C.; Quirrenbach, A.; Fiorentin, P. Re; Read, J., I; Romano, D.; Ryde, N.; Sanna, N.; Santos, W.; Seabroke, G. M.; Spagna, A.; Steinmetz, M.; Stonkute, E.; Sutorius, E.; Thevenin, F.; Tosi, M.; Tsantaki, M.; Vink, J. S.; Wright, N.; Wyse, R. F. G.; Zoccali, M.; Zorec, J.; Zucker, D. B.; Walton, N. A., Context. In the last 15 years different ground-based spectroscopic surveys have been started (and completed) with the general aim of delivering stellar parameters and elemental abundances for large samples of Galactic stars, complementing Gaia astrometry. Among those surveys, the Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey, the only one performed on a 8m class telescope, was designed to target 100 000 stars using FLAMES on the ESO VLT (both Giraffe and UVES spectrographs), covering all the Milky Way populations, with a special focus on open star clusters. Aims. This article provides an overview of the survey implementation (observations, data quality, analysis and its success, data products, and releases), of the open cluster survey, of the science results and potential, and of the survey legacy. A companion article reviews the overall survey motivation, strategy, Giraffe pipeline data reduction, organisation, and workflow. Methods. We made use of the information recorded and archived in the observing blocks; during the observing runs; in a number of relevant documents; in the spectra and master catalogue of spectra; in the parameters delivered by the analysis nodes and the working groups; in the final catalogue; and in the science papers. Based on these sources, we critically analyse and discuss the output and products of the Survey, including science highlights. We also determined the average metallicities of the open clusters observed as science targets and of a sample of clusters whose spectra were retrieved from the ESO archive. Results. The Gaia-ESO Survey has determined homogeneous good-quality radial velocities and stellar parameters for a large fraction of its more than 110 000 unique target stars. Elemental abundances were derived for up to 31 elements for targets observed with UVES. Lithium abundances are delivered for about 1/3 of the sample. The analysis and homogenisation strategies have proven to be successful; several science topics have been addressed by the Gaia-ESO consortium and the community, with many highlight results achieved. Conclusions. The final catalogue will be released through the ESO archive in the first half of 2022, including the complete set of advanced data products. In addition to these results, the Gaia-ESO Survey will leave a very important legacy, for several aspects and for many years to come. © ESO 2022., Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programmes ID 188.B-3002, 193-B-0936, and 197.B-1074. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. Public access to the data products is via the ESO Archive, and the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF PRIN and Ministero dell’ Universitá e della Ricerca (MUR) in the form of the grant “Premiale VLT 2012” and “Premiale Mitic”. This work was partly supported by the INAF grant for mainstream projects: “Enhancing the legacy of the Gaia-ESO Survey for open cluster science”. The project presented here benefited in development from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. R. Smiljanic acknowledges support from the National Science Centre, Poland (2014/15/B/ST9/03981). F.J.E. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO/FEDER through the grant AYA2017-84089 and MDM-2017-0737 at Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Unidad de Excelencia Mar a de Maeztu, and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 824064 through the ESCAPE - The European Science Cluster of Astronomy & Particle Physics ESFRI Research Infrastructures project. T.B. was funded by the “The New Milky Way” project grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. S.R.B. acknowledges support by the Spanish Government under grants AYA2015-68012-C2-2-P and PGC2018-093741-B-C21/C22 (MICIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). W.J.S. acknowledges CAPES for a PhD studentship. J.M.A. acknowledges support from the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn through grants AYA2013-40611-P, AYA2016-75931-C2-2-P, and PGC2018-095049-B-C22. T.M. and others from STAR institute, Liege, Belgium are grateful to Belgian F.R.S.-FNRS for support, and are also indebted for an ESA/PRODEX Belspo contract related to the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium and for support through an ARC grant for Concerted Research Actions financed by the Federation Wallonie-Brussels. This research has been partially supported by the ASI-INAF contract 2014-049-R.O: “Realizzazione attività tecniche/scientifiche presso ASDC” (PI Angelo Antonelli). V.A.acknowledges the support from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through Investigador FCT contract nr. IF/00650/2015/CP1273/CT0001. AJK acknowledges support by the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA). AB acknowledges support by ANID, – Millennium Science Initiative Program – NCN19_171, and FONDECYT regular 1190748. E.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) through project MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu” – Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA). T.Z. acknowledges financial support of the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P1-0188) and the European Space Agency (Prodex Experiment Arrangement No. C4000127986). P.J. acknowledges support FONDECYT Regular 1200703. The work of I.N. is partially supported by the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades under grant PGC2018-093741-B-C21 (MICIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). Funding for this work has been provided by the ARC Future Fellowship FT160100402. CAP acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Government through research grants MINECO AYA 2014-56359-P, MINECO AYA2017-86389-P, and MICINN PID2020-117493GB-I00. S.F. was supported by the grants 2011-5042 and 2016- 03412 from the Swedish Research Council and the project grant “The New Milky Way” from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. CASU is supported through STFC grants: ST/H004157/1, ST/J00541X/1, ST/M007626/1, ST/N005805/1, ST/T003081/1. Work reported here benefited from support through the GREAT-ITN FP7 project Grant agreement ID: 264895. DKF acknowledges funds from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in the framework of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the grant 2016-03412 from the Swedish Research Council. A.H. acknowledges support from the Spanish Government Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn and ERD Funds through grants PGC-2018-091 3741-B-C22 and CEX2019-000920-S. X.F. acknowledge the support of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation 2020M670023. M.L.L. Dantas acknowledges the Polish NCN grant number 2019/34/E/ST9/00133. Part of this work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 138713538 – SFB 881 (“The Milky Way System”, subproject A09). M.Z. acknowledge support from the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) grants: FONDECYT Regular 1191505, Millennium Institute of Astrophysics ICN12-009, BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies AFB-170002. R.B. acknowledges support from the project PRIN-INAF 2019 “Spectroscopically Tracing the Disk Dispersal Evolution”. HMT acknowledges financial support from the Agencia Estatal de Investigaciόn of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades through projects PID2019-109522GB-C51,54/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and the Centre of Excellence “María de Maeztu” award to Centro de Astrobiología (MDM-2017-0737). JIGH acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) project AYA2017-86389-P, and also from the Spanish MICINN under 2013 Ramøn y Cajal program RYC-2013-14875. V.P.D. is supported by STFC Consolidated grant ST/R000786/1. N.L. acknowledges financial support from “Programme National de Physique Stellaire” (PNPS) and the “Programme National Cosmology et Galaxies (PNCG)” of CNRS/INSU, France. A.R.C. is supported in part by the Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE190100656). Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. PSB is Supported by the Swedish Research Council through individual project grants with contract Nos. 2016-03765 and 2020-03404. A.M. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 772293 - project ASTEROCHRONOMETRY). J.P. was supported by the project RVO: 67985815. E.D.M. acknowledges the support from FCT through the research grants UIDB/04434/2020 & UIDP/04434/2020 and through Investigator FCT contract IF/00849/2015/CP1273/CT0003. This work was (partially) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (MICIU/FEDER, UE) through grant RTI2018-095076-B-C21, and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. S.L.M. acknowledges the support of the UNSW Scientia Fellowship program and the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project grant DP180101791. G.T. acknowledges financial support of the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P1-0188) and the European Space Agency (Prodex Experiment Arrangement No. C4000127986). S.G.S. acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract no. CEECIND/00826/2018 and POPH/FSE (EC). H.G.L. acknowledges financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - Project-ID 138713538 – SFB 881 (“The Milky Way System”, subproject A04). This work was (partially) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (MICIU/FEDER, UE) through grant RTI2018-095076-B-C21, and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. T.K. is supported by STFC Consolidated grant ST/R000786/1. M.V. acknowledges the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, project number: 428473034). T.M. is supported by a grant from the Fondation ULB. We acknowledge financial support from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, from project AYA2016-79425-C3-1-P and PID2019-109522GB-C5[4]/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen). D.G. gratefully acknowledges support from the Chilean Centro de Excelencia en Astrofίsica y Tecnologías Afines (CATA) BASAL grant AFB-170002. D.G. also acknowledges financial support from the Direcciόn de Investigaciόn y Desarrollo de la Universidad de La Serena through the Programa de Incentivo a la Investigaciόn de Académicos (PIA-DIDULS). A. Lobel acknowledges support in part by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office under contract no. BR/143/A2/BRASS. We acknowledge financial support from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaciόn y Universidades, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, from project AYA2016-79425-C3-1-P and PID2019-109522GB-C5[4]/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. AM acknowledges the support from the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Portuguese Strategic Programme UID/FIS/00099/2019 for CENTRA. T.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through the Spanish State Research Agency, under the Severo Ochoa Program 2020-2023 (CEX2019-000920-S). E.J.A. acknowledges funding from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709).

The chemical makeup of a star provides the fossil information of the environment where it formed. Under this premise, it should be possible to use chemical abundances to tag stars that formed within the same stellar association. This idea - known as chemical tagging - has not produced the expected results, especially within the thin disk where open stellar clusters have chemical patterns that are difficult to disentangle. The ultimate goal of this study is to probe the feasibility of chemical tagging within the thin disk population using high-quality data from a controlled sample of stars. We also aim at improving the existing techniques of chemical tagging and giving guidance on different strategies of clustering analysis in the elemental abundance space. Here we develop the first blind search of open clusters' members through clustering analysis in the elemental abundance space using the OPTICS algorithm applied to data from the Gaia-ESO survey. First, we evaluate different strategies of analysis, determining which ones are more performing. Second, we apply these methods to a data set including both field stars and open clusters attempting a blind recover of as many open clusters as possible. We show how specific strategies of data analysis can improve the final results. Specifically, we demonstrate that open clusters can be more efficaciously recovered with the Manhattan metric and on a space whose dimensions are carefully selected. Using these (and other) prescriptions we are able to recover open clusters hidden in our data set and find new members of these stellar associations. Our results indicate that there are chances of recovering open clusters' members via clustering analysis in the elemental abundance space. Presumably, the performances of chemical tagging will further increase with higher quality data and more sophisticated clustering algorithms., Comment: Accepted for publication by A&A. 21 pages, 11 figures

Deciphering the assembly history of the Milky Way is a formidable task, which becomes possible only if one can produce high-resolution chrono-chemo-kinematical maps of the Galaxy. Data from large-scale astrometric and spectroscopic surveys will soon provide us with a well-defined view of the current chemo-kinematical structure of the Milky Way, but will only enable a blurred view on the temporal sequence that led to the present-day Galaxy. As demonstrated by the (ongoing) exploitation of data from the pioneering photometric missions CoRoT, Kepler, and K2, asteroseismology provides the way forward: solar-like oscillating giants are excellent evolutionary clocks thanks to the availability of seismic constraints on their mass and to the tight age-initial-mass relation they adhere to. In this paper we identify five key outstanding questions relating to the formation and evolution of the Milky Way that will need precise and accurate ages for large samples of stars to be addressed, and we identify the requirements in terms of number of targets and the precision on the stellar properties that are needed to tackle such questions. By quantifying the asteroseismic yields expected from PLATO for red-giant stars, we demonstrate that these requirements are within the capabilities of the current instrument design, provided that observations are sufficiently long to identify the evolutionary state and allow robust and precise determination of acoustic-mode frequencies. This will allow us to harvest data of sufficient quality to reach a 10% precision in age. This is a fundamental pre-requisite to then reach the more ambitious goal of a similar level of accuracy, which will only be possible if we have to hand a careful appraisal of systematic uncertainties on age deriving from our limited understanding of stellar physics, a goal which conveniently falls within the main aims of PLATO's core science., 17 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomical Notes

We investigate, using the Gaia-ESO Survey internal Data-Release 2, the properties of the double sequence of the Milky Way discs (defined chemically as the high-alpha and low-alpha populations), and discuss their compatibility with discs defined by other means such as metallicity, kinematics or positions. This investigation uses two different approaches: in velocity space for stars located in the extended Solar neighbourhood, and in chemical space for stars at different ranges of Galactocentric radii and heights from the plane. The separation we find in velocity space allows us to investigate, in a novel manner, the extent in metallicity of each of the two sequences, identifying them with the two discs, without making any assumption about the shape of their metallicity distribution functions. Then, using the separation in chemical space, we characterise the spatial variation of the slopes of the [alpha/Fe] - [Fe/H] sequences for the thick and thin discs and the way in which the relative proportions of the two discs change across the Galaxy. We find that the thick disc (high-alpha sequence), extends up to [Fe/H]~ +0.2 and the thin disc (low-alpha sequence), at least down to [Fe/H]~ -0.8. Radial and vertical gradients in alpha-abundances are found for the thin disc, with mild spatial variations in its [alpha/Fe] - [Fe/H] paths, whereas for the thick disc we do not detect any such spatial variations. The small variations in the spatial [alpha/Fe] - [Fe/H] paths of the thin disc do not allow us to distinguish between formation models of this structure. On the other hand, the lack of radial gradients and [alpha/Fe] - [Fe/H] variations for the thick disc indicate that the mechanism responsible for the mixing of the metals in the young Galaxy (e.g. radial stellar migration or turbulent gaseous disc) was more efficient before the (present) thin disc started forming., 21 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

We study the relationship between age, metallicity, and alpha-enhancement of FGK stars in the Galactic disk. The results are based upon the analysis of high-resolution UVES spectra from the Gaia-ESO large stellar survey. We explore the limitations of the observed dataset, i.e. the accuracy of stellar parameters and the selection effects that are caused by the photometric target preselection. We find that the colour and magnitude cuts in the survey suppress old metal-rich stars and young metal-poor stars. This suppression may be as high as 97% in some regions of the age-metallicity relationship. The dataset consists of 144 stars with a wide range of ages from 0.5 Gyr to 13.5 Gyr, Galactocentric distances from 6 kpc to 9.5 kpc, and vertical distances from the plane 0 < |Z| < 1.5 kpc. On this basis, we find that i) the observed age-metallicity relation is nearly flat in the range of ages between 0 Gyr and 8 Gyr; ii) at ages older than 9 Gyr, we see a decrease in [Fe/H] and a clear absence of metal-rich stars; this cannot be explained by the survey selection functions; iii) there is a significant scatter of [Fe/H] at any age; and iv) [Mg/Fe] increases with age, but the dispersion of [Mg/Fe] at ages > 9 Gyr is not as small as advocated by some other studies. In agreement with earlier work, we find that radial abundance gradients change as a function of vertical distance from the plane. The [Mg/Fe] gradient steepens and becomes negative. In addition, we show that the inner disk is not only more alpha-rich compared to the outer disk, but also older, as traced independently by the ages and Mg abundances of stars., accepted for publication in A&A