Barium abundances in Cepheids

We derived the barium atmospheric abundances for a large sample of Cepheids, comprising 270 stars. The sample covers a large range of Galactocentric distances, from about 4 to 15 kpc, so it is appropriate to investigate the existence of radial barium abundance gradients in the Galactic disc. In fact, this is the first time that such a comprehensive analysis of the distribution of barium abundances in the Galactic disc has been carried out. As a result, we conclude that the Ba abundance distribution can be characterized by a zero gradient. This result is compared with derived gradients for other elements, and some reasons are briefly discussed for the independence of the barium abundances from Galactocentric distances.