Related papers: Galactic Fly-Bys: New Source of Lithium Production
Known sources of lithium (Li) in the universe include the big bang, novae, asymptotic giant branch stars, and cosmic ray spallation. During their longer-lived evolutionary phases, stars are not expected to add to the Li budget of the…
Observations of interstellar lithium provide a valuable complement to studies of lithium in Pop I and Pop II stars. Large corrections for unseen LiII and for non-gas phase lithium have provided obstacles to using interstellar data for…
In the primordial Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), only the lightest nuclides (D, $^3$He, $^4$He, and $^7$Li) were synthesized in appreciable quantities, and these relics provide us a unique window on the early universe. Currently, BBN…
Recent new high-precision abundance data for Galactic halo stars suggest important primary nitrogen production in very metal-poor massive stars. Here, we compute a new model for the chemical evolution of the Milky Way aimed at explaining…
We present the abundances of Li, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, and Ba in a wide metallicity range ($-2.8 \le$ [Fe/H] $\le -1.5$). Using the differential technique allowed us to obtain an unprecedented low…
While the abundances of Be and B observed in metal-poor halo stars are well explained as resulting from spallation of CNO-enriched cosmic rays (CRs) accelerated by supernova shocks, accounting for the observed $^6$Li in such stars with…
We first show that a large amount of metal-poor gas is stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and fallen into the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) during the tidal interaction between the SMC, the LMC, and the Galaxy over the last 2…
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…
Context: Lithium is a fragile element, which is easily destroyed in the stellar interior. The existence of lithium-rich giants still represents a challenge for stellar evolution models. Aims: We have collected a large database of…
Recent spectroscopic observations of metal poor stars have indicated that both $^7$Li and $^6$Li have abundance plateaus with respect to the metallicity. Abundances of $^7$Li are about a factor three lower than the primordial abundance…
The Small Magellanic Cloud is a close, irregular galaxy that has experienced a complex star formation history due to the strong interactions occurred both with the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Galaxy. Despite its importance, the chemical…
Very high-quality spectra of 24 metal-poor halo dwarfs and subgiants have been acquired with ESO's VLT/UVES for the purpose of determining Li isotopic abundances. The derived 1D, non-LTE 7Li abundances from the LiI 670.8nm line reveal a…
The cosmological lithium problem -- that theory predicts a primordial abundance far higher than the observed value -- has resisted decades of attempts by cosmologists, nuclear physicists, and astronomers alike to root out systematics. We…
Recent WMAP observations indicate that the primordial abundance of lithium should have been 2-4 times higher than the value measured in low-metallicity stars. We show that this discrepancy can be explained by the process of ambipolar…
We argue that extreme metal-poor stars show a high dispersion in metallicity, because their abundances are the outcome of very few supernova events. Abundance anomalies should appear because of the discrete range of progenitor masses. There…
The high 6-Li abundances recently measured in metal-poor halo stars are far above the value predicted by Big Bang nucleosynthesis. They cannot be explained by galactic cosmic-ray interactions in the interstellar medium either. Various…
Observational constraints on the primordial lithium abundance are important for the evaluation of the baryonic density of the universe. Its precise determination however suffers from uncertainties due to the possible depletion of this…
The $^7$Li abundance calculated in BBN with the baryon-to-photon ratio fixed from fits to the CMB power spectrum is inconsistent with the observed lithium abundances on the surface of metal-poor halo stars. Previous cosmological solutions…
High-velocity clouds (HVCs) are multi-phase gas structures whose velocities (|v_LSR|>100 km/s) are too high to be explained by Galactic disk rotation. While large HVCs are well characterized, compact and small HVCs (with HI angular sizes of…
The $^6$Li abundance observed in metal poor halo stars exhibits a plateau similar to that for $^7$Li suggesting a primordial origin. However, the observed abundance of $^6$Li is a factor of $10^3$ larger and that of $^7$Li is a factor of 3…