Related papers: Doppler imaging of the helium-variable star a Cen
Helium has been proposed as the key element to interpret the observed multiple main sequences (MS), subgiant branches (SGB) and red giant branches (RGB), as well as the complex horizontal branch (HB) morphology in Globular Clusters (GC).…
We carried out a homogeneous abundance study for various elements, including $\alpha$-elements, iron peak elements and $n$-capture elements for 35 metal-poor stars with a wide metallicity range ($-3.0\lesssim$[Fe/H]$\lesssim-0.5$).…
Most globular clusters in the local group show multiple stellar populations, a pattern defined by variations of several light elements, with some also displaying dispersions in heavy elements. Since helium is the most immediate product of…
We present $\gtrsim 15,000$ metal-rich (${\rm [Fe/H]}>-0.2$dex) A and F stars whose surface abundances deviate strongly from Solar abundance ratios and cannot plausibly reflect their birth material composition. These stars are identified by…
The recent discovery of examples of intermediate-mass helium stars have offered new insights into interacting binaries. These observations will allow significant improvements in our understanding of helium stars. However, in the creation of…
Elements heavier than the iron group are found in nearly all halo stars. A substantial number of these elements, key to understanding neutron-capture nucleosynthesis mechanisms, can only be detected in the near-ultraviolet. We report the…
We have derived abundances of O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Fe, Ni and Ba for 43 metal-poor field stars in the solar neighbourhood with iron abundances [Fe/H] ranging from -0.4 to -3.0. Total abundance errors are estimated to about…
We report on the discovery of seven low-metallicity stars selected from the Hamburg/ESO Survey, six of which are extremely metal-poor ([Fe/H]<-3.0), with four having [Fe/H]<-3.5. Chemical abundances or upper limits are derived for these…
There is increasing evidence that single-star evolutionary models are inadequate to reproduce all observational properties of massive stars. Binary interaction has emerged as a key factor in the evolution of a significant fraction of…
We report a detailed abundance analysis for HE0107-5240, a halo giant with [Fe/H]_NLTE=-5.3. This star was discovered in the course of follow-up medium-resolution spectroscopy of extremely metal-poor candidates selected from the digitized…
Carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars are believed to show the chemical imprints of more massive stars (M > 0.8 Msun) that are now extinct. In particular, it is expected that the observed abundance of Li should deviate in these stars from…
Intermediate-mass, chemically peculiar stars with strong magnetic fields give us an excellent opportunity to study the topology of their surface magnetic fields and the interplay between magnetic geometries and abundance inhomogeneities in…
Deep spectroscopy of the planetary nebula (PN) NGC\,6153 shows that its heavy element abundances derived from optical recombination lines (ORLs) are ten times higher than those derived from collisionally excited lines (CELs), and points to…
Motivated by the theoretical hypotheses on the existence of heretofore unobserved stable elementary particles and exotic nuclear states, we searched for doubly-charged particles, as anomalously heavy isotopes of helium, in the Earth's…
The majority of the inhomogeneities in the chemical composition of Globular Cluster (GC) stars appear due to primordial enrichment by hot-CNO cycled material processed in stars belonging to a first stellar generation. Either massive AGB…
Recent developments in asteroseismology -- thanks to space-based missions such as {\it CoRoT} and {\it Kepler} -- provide handles on those properties of stars that were either completely inaccessible in the past or only poorly measured.…
We present a high-precision, differential elemental abundance analysis of the HAT-P-1 stellar binary based on high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio Keck/HIRES spectra. The secondary star in this double system is known to host a…
Atmospheric parameters and helium abundances of 44 bright subdwarf B stars have been determined. More than half of our sample consists of newly discovered stars from the Edinburgh Cape survey. We showed that effective temperatures and…
We present a detailed abundance analysis of 8 stars selected as extremely metal poor candidates from the Hamburg/ESO Survey (HES). For comparison, we have also analysed 3 extremely metal-poor candidates from the HK survey, and 3 additional…
We present the results of an analysis for 107 extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars with metallicities less than [Fe/H] = -3.0, identified from medium-resolution spectra in SDSS. We follow a methodology based on comparisons of the observed…