History of Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies imprinted on abundance patterns of neutron-capture elements

The stellar abundance pattern of n-capture elements, such as barium, is used as a powerful tool to infer how star formation proceeded in dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies. It is found that the abundance correlation of barium with iron in stars belonging to dSph galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, i.e., Draco, Sextans, and Ursa Minor, have a feature similar to the barium-iron correlation in Galactic metal-poor stars. The common feature of these two correlations can be realized by our inhomogeneous chemical evolution model based on the supernova-driven star formation scenario if dSph stars formed from gas with a velocity dispersion of similar to26 km s(-1). This velocity dispersion together with the stellar luminosities strongly suggest that dark matter dominated dSph galaxies. The tidal force of the Milky Way links this velocity dispersion with the currently observed value of less than or similar to10 km s(-1) by stripping the dark matter in dSph galaxies. As a result, the total mass of each dSph galaxy is found to have been originally similar to25 times larger than at present. Our inhomogeneous chemical evolution model succeeds in reproducing the stellar [Fe/H] distribution function observed in Sextans. In this model, supernovae immediately after the end of star formation epoch can expel the remaining gas over the gravitational potential of the dSph galaxy.