Related papers: Extremely metal-poor gas at a redshift of 7
The discovery of metal-poor stars (where metal is any element more massive than helium) has enabled astronomers to probe the chemical enrichment history of the Milky Way. More recently, element abundances in gas inside high-redshift…
We present measurements of carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron in quasar absorption systems existing when the universe was roughly one billion years old. We measure column densities in nine low-ionization systems at 4.7 < z < 6.3 using Keck,…
We analyze relative abundances and ionization conditions in a strong absorption system at z=6.84, seen in the spectrum of the z=7.54 background quasar ULAS J134208.10+092838.61. Singly ionized C, Si, Fe, Mg, and Al measurements are…
The damped Lyman alpha systems seen in the spectra of high redshift QSOs offer the means to determine element abundances in galaxies observed while still at an early stage of evolution. Such measurements, which have only recently come…
Element abundances in high-redshift quasar absorbers offer excellent probes of the chemical enrichment of distant galaxies, and can constrain models for population III and early population II stars. Recent observations indicate that the…
The first stars are predicted to have formed within 200 million years after the Big Bang, initiating the cosmic dawn. A true first star has not yet been discovered, although stars with tiny amounts of elements heavier than helium ('metals')…
We present abundance measurements of elements O, C, Si and Fe for three gas-rich galaxies at z~5 using observations from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Keck telescope in order to better constrain the early chemical enrichment of…
The oldest stars in the universe retain to a great extent detailed information on the chemical composition of the interstellar medium at the time of their birth. Hence the earliest phases of Galactic chemical evolution and nucleosynthesis…
We examine rest-frame ultraviolet spectra of 70 high redshift quasars (z>3.5) to study the chemical enrichment history of the gas closely related to the quasars, and thereby estimate the epoch of first star formation. The fluxes of several…
High redshift quasars mark the locations where massive galaxies are rapidly being assembled and forming stars. There is growing evidence that quasar environments are metal-rich out to redshifts of at least five. The gas-phase metallicities…
The onset of galaxy formation is thought to be initiated by the infall of neutral, pristine gas onto the first protogalactic halos. However, direct constraints on the abundance of neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) in galaxies have been difficult…
The horizon for studies of element abundances has expanded dramatically in the last ten years. Once the domain of astronomers concerned chiefly with stars and nearby galaxies, this field has now become a key component of observational…
Winds from star-forming galaxies provide the most promising explanation for the enrichment of the intergalactic medium with heavy elements. Theoretical and observational arguments indicate that the pollution may have occurred at z > 6;…
Spectroscopic observations of distant cosmological sources continue to exhibit a surprising result; that the chemical abundance of the universe seems to be approximately solar for the observed sources at redshifts of 5, 6, and even 7, even…
Ratios of different ions of the same element encode ionization information independently from relative abundances in quasar absorption line systems, crucial for understanding the multiphase nature and origin of absorbing gas, particularly…
We report the discovery of large amounts of cold (T ~ 10^4 K), chemically young gas in an overdensity of galaxies at redshift z ~ 1.6 in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey southern field (GOODS-S). The gas is identified thanks to…
In order to understand galaxy evolution through cosmic times it is critical to derive the properties of the molecular gas content of galaxies, i.e. the material out of which stars ultimately form. The last decade has seen rapid progress in…
The early Universe had a chemical composition consisting of hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium1, almost all other elements were created in stars and supernovae. The mass fraction, Z, of elements more massive than helium, is called…
A broad array of interstellar absorption features that appear in the ultraviolet spectra of bright sources allows us to measure the abundances and ionization states of many important heavy elements that exist as free atoms in the…
The past few years have seen a steady progress in the determination of element abundances at high redshifts, with new and more accurate measures of metallicities in star-forming galaxies, in QSO absorbers, and in the intergalactic medium.…