Related papers: Reconstructing the cosmic evolution of the chemica…
The origin of the elements is a fascinating question that scientists have been trying to answer for the last seven decades. The formation of light elements in the primordial universe and heavier elements in astrophysical sources occurs…
This review provides the necessary background from astrophysics, nuclear, and particle physics to understand the cosmic origin of the chemical elements. It reflects the year 2009 state of the art in this extremely quickly developing…
Growing evidence shows that most stars in the Milky Way, including the Sun, are born in high-mass star-forming regions, but due to both observational and theoretical challenges, our understanding of their chemical evolution is much less…
The cosmic microwave background and the cosmic expansion can be interpreted as evidence that the Universe underwent an extremely hot and dense phase about 14 Gyr ago. The nucleosynthesis computations tell us that the Universe emerged from…
Half a century has passed since the foundation of nuclear astrophysics. Since then, this discipline has reached its maturity. Today, nuclear astrophysics constitutes a multidisciplinary crucible of knowledge that combines the achievements…
Observations made using large ground-based and space-borne telescopes have probed cosmic history all the way from the present-day to a time when the Universe was less than a tenth of its present age. Earlier on lies the remaining frontier,…
Stars are fossils that retain the history of their host galaxies. Carbon and heavier elements are created inside stars and are ejected when they die. From the spatial distribution of elements in galaxies, it is therefore possible to…
The first massive stars triggered the onset of chemical evolution by releasing the first metals (elements heavier than helium) in the Universe. The nature of these stars and how the early chemical enrichment took place is still largely…
Ancient, long-lived stars remain present in all components of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Born a few hundred million after the Big Bang and during a time that marked the very beginning of the chemical evolution, these stars display very…
Metal-poor stars hold the key to our understanding of the origin of the elements and the chemical evolution of the Universe. This chapter describes the process of discovery of these rare stars, the manner in which their surface abundances…
The emergence of the first sources of light at redshifts of z ~ 10-30 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the Universe to one of increasing complexity. We review recent progress in our understanding of the formation of…
The early chemical evolution of the Galaxy and the Universe is vital to our understanding of a host of astrophysical phenomena. Since the most metal-poor Galactic stars (with metallicities down to [Fe/H]\sim-5.5) are relics from the…
Understanding the origin of the elements has been a decades long pursuit, with many open questions still remaining. Old stars found in the Milky Way and its dwarf satellite galaxies can provide answers because they preserve clean elemental…
From the time the first stars formed over 13 billion years ago to the present, star formation has had an unexpectedly dynamic history. At first, the star formation rate density increased dramatically, reaching a peak 10 billion years ago…
We will discuss some highlights concerning the chemical evolution of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. First we will describe the main ingredients necessary to build a model for the chemical evolution of the Milky Way. Then we will illustrate some…
The abundance patterns of metal-poor stars provide us a wealth of chemical information about various stages of cosmic chemical evolution. In particular, these stars allow us to study the formation and evolution of the elements, and the…
The chemical abundances in the atmosphere of a star provide unique information about the gas from which that star formed, and, modulo processes that are not important for the vast majority of stars, such as mass transfer in close binary…
The description of the tempo-spatial evolution of the composition of cosmic gas on galactic scales is called 'modelling galactic chemical evolution'. It aims to use knowledge about sources of nucleosynthesis and how they change the…
Metals -- heavy elements synthesized during various phases of stellar evolution or during supernova explosions -- play a fundamental role in shaping galaxy evolution. In fact, their relative abundances, spatial distribution, and scaling…
The basic processes of the formation of the first stars in the primordial Universe are outlined and the implications for cosmological structure formation discussed. By employing theoretical and numerical models of cosmic structure evolution…