Speaker
Description
The abundances of mixing sensitive elements are known to change near the red giant branch bump in metal-poor stars, something often known as “extra mixing”. The leading explanation for these changes has been the triggering of the double-diffusive thermohaline instability, but that theory makes specific predictions about the timing and trends of the mixing. With currently available spectroscopic datasets, I will show that while analyses using [C/N] seem consistent with extra mixing being related to the thermohaline instability, analyses using lithium as a diagnostic may be inconsistent with that theory. Finally, I will discuss how Milky Way Mapper may be able to better constrain the pattern and therefore the reason for extra mixing in the future.
