Related papers: Lithium-7 surface abundance in pre-MS stars. Testi…
Europium plays a key role in studies of nucleosynthesis in the rapid (r-) process of neutron capture nuclear reactions and the evolution of the r-process element abundances in galaxies. We refine the method for analyzing the Eu~II lines in…
The cosmological lithium problem, that is, 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…
The observations of light elements in the Sun and Solar type stars give special clues for understanding the hydrodynamical processes at work in stellar interiors. In the Sun 7Li is depleted by 140 while 3He has not increased by more than…
(ABRIDGED) We assess the systematic uncertainties in (young) cluster age, mass, and - to a lesser extent - extinction and metallicity determinations, based on broad-band imaging observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. Our aim here is…
Molybdenum abundances in the stars from 13 different open clusters were determined. High-resolution stellar spectra were obtained using the VLT telescope equipped with the UVES spectrograph on Cerro Paranal, Chile. The Mo abundances were…
Rapidly growing datasets from stellar spectroscopic surveys are providing unprecedented opportunities to analyse the chemical evolution history of our Galaxy. However, spectral analysis requires accurate modelling of synthetic stellar…
To constrain the universe before recombination (380000 years after the Big Bang), we mostly rely on the measurements of the primordial abundances that indicate the first insight into the thermal history of the universe. The first production…
The surface lithium abundance A(Li) of warm metal-poor dwarf stars exhibits a narrow plateau down to [Fe/H]~-2.8 dex, while at lower metallicities the average value drops by 0.3 dex with a significant star-by-star scatter (called lithium…
Models of stellar structure and evolution can be constrained by measuring accurate parameters of detached eclipsing binaries in open clusters. Multiple binary stars provide the means to determine helium abundances in these old stellar…
We have used two robotic telescopes to obtain time-series high-resolution spectroscopy and V I and/or by photometry for a sample of 60 active stars. Orbital solutions are presented for 26 SB2 and 19 SB1 systems with unprecedented phase…
Context. Open clusters are ideal test particles to study the chemical evolution of the Galactic disc. However the existing high-resolution abundance determinations, not only of [Fe/H], but also of other key elements, is largely insufficient…
In the past years we have made great efforts to reduce the statistical and systematic uncertainties in stellar parameter and chemical abundance determinations of early B-type stars. Both the construction of robust model atoms for non-LTE…
We assess the impact of starspots on the evolution of late-type stars during the pre-main sequence (pre-MS) using a modified stellar evolution code. We find that heavily spotted models of mass 0.1-1.2\msun\ are inflated by up to $10$%…
We compare the Li abundances of a sample of stars with planets discovered with the Doppler method to a sample of stars without detected planets. We prepared the samples by combining the Li abundances reported in several recent studies in a…
We present Li and Fe abundances for 87 stars in the GC M4,obtained with GIRAFFE high-resolution spectra. The targets range from the TO up to the RGB Bump. The Li abundance in the TO stars is uniform, with an average value A(Li)=2.30+-0.02…
We test a scenario in which radial migration could affect the Li abundance pattern of dwarf stars in the solar neighbourhood. This may confirm that the Li abundance in these stars can not serve as a probe for the Li abundance in the…
Aims. We investigate statistical equilibrium of Cr in the atmospheres of late-type stars to show whether the systematic abundance discrepancy between Cr I and Cr II lines, as often encountered in the literature, is due to deviations from…
Un-evolved, very metal-poor stars are the most important tracers of the cosmic abundance of lithium in the early universe. Combining the standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis model with Galactic production through cosmic ray spallation, these…
Li-depleted (enhanced) stars in the main-sequence (MS) and (or) the RGB, pose a puzzling mystery. Presently, there is still no clear answer to the mechanism(s) that enables such Li depletion (enhancement). One possible explanation comes…
A homogeneous spectroscopic analysis of unevolved and evolved stars in the metal-poor globular cluster NGC 6397 with FLAMES-UVES reveals systematic trends of stellar surface abundances that are likely caused by atomic diffusion. This…