Related papers: Shedding Light on Lithium Evolution: The Globular …
I summarize the results of 15 years of research on the surface abundances of stars in globular clusters. Globular-cluster stars afford a unique view of the physical processes that shape the surface abundances of stars on and beyond the…
The "stellar" solution to the cosmological lithium problem proposes that surface depletion of lithium in low-mass, metal-poor stars can reconcile the lower abundances found for Galactic halo stars with the primordial prediction. Globular…
We have computed a grid of up-to-date stellar evolutionary models including atomic diffusion, in order to study the evolution with time of the surface Li abundance in low-mass metal-poor stars. We discuss in detail the dependence of the…
Most Globular Clusters are believed to host a single stellar populations. They can thus be considered a good place to study the Spite plateau and probe for possible evolutionary modifications of the Li content. We want to determine the Li…
Lithium is one of the few elements produced during the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis in the early universe. Moreover, its fragility makes it useful as a proxy for stellar environmental conditions. As such, the lithium abundance in old systems is…
The current status of observational studies of lithium depletion in open clusters is reviewed, concentrating mainly on G and K type stars. I attempt to answer the following questions: Can the lithium depletion patterns seen in open clusters…
While theoretical computations of the lithium abundances in Pop II stars predict variations from star to star, the most recent observations confirm the existence of a "lithium plateau" with no abundance dispersion. This apparent paradox has…
In the multiple population framework, a number of studies have been accomplished in order to explore the behaviour of lithium with proton-capture element abundances (e.g., Na, O, Al) in globular cluster stars. Lithium offers perhaps one of…
Lithium abundances have been determined in more than 100 metal-poor halo stars both in the field and in clusters. From these data we find trends of Li with both temperature and metallicity and a real dispersion in Li abundances in the Spite…
Metal-poor stars are crucially important for understanding the early Galaxy, first stars, and the Universe. In this series of papers, we present a homogeneous non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) abundances analysis of 12 elements for…
Multiple Populations represent the standard for Globular Clusters (GC): a fraction (10-50%) of their stars have the same elemental abundances of halo stars of similar metallicity (first generation, or 1G), but the other stars (second…
Lithium is created during the Big Bang nucleosynthesis and it is destroyed in stellar interiors at relatively low temperatures. However, it should be preserved in the stellar envelopes of unevolved stars and progressively diluted during…
Lithium abundance derived in metal-poor main sequence stars is about three times lower than the value of primordial Li predicted by the standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis when the baryon density is taken from the CMB or the deuterium…
The prediction of the PLANCK-constrained primordial lithium abundance in the Universe is in discordance with the observed Li abundances in warm Population II dwarf and subgiant stars. Among the physically best motivated ideas, it has been…
Thanks to the high multiplex and efficiency of Giraffe at the VLT we have been able for the first time to observe the Li I doublet in the Main Sequence (MS) stars of a Globular Cluster. At the same time we observed Li in a sample of…
The observed amount of lithium for low metallicity population II stars (known as the Spite plateau) is a factor of $\sim 3-5$ lower than the predictions of the standard cosmology. Since the observations are limited to the local Universe…
The light element lithium is formed by nucleosynthesis during the Big Bang. Its abundance can help to define the parameters of the early universe. To find this primordial value, it is necessary to determine Li abundances in the oldest stars…
I review basic observational features in Population I stars which strongly implicate rotation as a mixing agent; these include dispersion at fixed temperature in coeval populations and main sequence lithium depletion for a range of masses…
The cosmological lithium problem, i.e. the discrepancy between the lithium abundance predicted by the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the one observed for the stars of the "Spite plateau", is one of the long standing problems of modern…
We discuss the current status of the sample of Lithium abundances in extremely metal poor (EMP) turn-off (TO) stars collected by our group, and compare it with the available literature results. In the last years, evidences have accumulated…