A holistic approach to carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars

Received...; accepted... Context. Carbon-Enhanced Metal-Poor (CEMP) stars are known to be the direct witnesses of the nucleosynthesis of the first low- and intermediate-mass stars, because most have been polluted by a now-extinct AGB star. Aims. By considering the various CEMP subclasses separately, we try to derive, from the specific signatures imprinted on the abundances, parameters (such as metallicity, mass, temperature, and neutron source) characterizing AGB nucleosynthesis from the specific signatures imprinted on the abundances, and separate them from the impact of thermohaline mixing, first dredge-up, and dilution associated with the mass transfer from the companion. Methods. To put CEMP stars in a broad context, we collect abundances for about 180 stars of various metallicities (from solar down to [Fe/H]=-4), luminosity classes (dwarfs and giants), and abundance patterns (C-rich and poor, Ba-rich and poor, etc), from our own sample and from literature. Results. First, we show that there are CEMP stars which share the properties of CEMP-s stars and CEMP-no stars (which we call CEMP-low-s stars). We also show that there is a strong correlation between Ba and C abundances in the s-only CEMP stars. This strongly points at the operation of the 13 C neutron source in low-mass AGB stars. For the CEMP-rs stars (seemingly enriched with elements from both the s- and r-processes), the correlation of the N abundances with abundances of heavy elements from the 2 nd