Connecting the primordial and Galactic deuterium abundances
Astrophysics
2008-11-26 v1
Abstract
The deuterium abundances inferred from observations of the interstellar medium within 1-2 kpc of the Sun range over a factor of three and the corresponding oxygen abundances show an even larger dispersion. While the lower D (and O) abundances likely result from depletion onto dust, the higher D abundances are consistent with the BBN-predicted primordial D abundance and chemical evolution models of the Galaxy with infall of primordial or nearly primordial material. The large ranges in deuterium and oxygen abundances suggest that the effects of depletion and/or infall have not been homogenized in the local interstellar medium.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0703682,
title = {Connecting the primordial and Galactic deuterium abundances},
author = {Gary Steigman and Donatella Romano and Monica Tosi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0703682},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS