Related papers: Production of Lithium in Primordial Supernovae
Big Bang nucleosynthesis produces only light elements and the very first generation stars are thus formed from metal-free clouds. They start the production of heavy elements during their life, and enrich the interstellar medium through…
The search for the first stars formed from metal-free gas in the universe is one of the key issues in astronomy because it relates to many fields, such as the formation of stars and galaxies, the evolution of the universe, and the origin of…
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…
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…
While the modern stellar IMF shows a rapid decline with increasing mass, theoretical investigations suggest that very massive stars (>100 solar masses) may have been abundant in the early universe. Other calculations also indicate that,…
At very low metallicity, the effects of differential rotation have a more important impact on the evolution of stars than at high metallicity. Rotational mixing leads to the production of great quantities of helium and of primary $^{14}$N…
We describe how star formation is expected to proceed in the early metal-free Universe, focusing on the very first generations of stars. We then discuss how the star formation process may change as the effects of metallicity, external…
The recent discovery of a hyper metal-poor (HMP) star, whose metallicity Fe/H is smaller than 1/100,000 of the solar ratio, together with one earlier HMP star, has raised a challenging question if these HMP stars are the actual first…
The first generation of stars was formed from primordial gas. Numerical simulations suggest that the first stars were predominantly very massive, with typical masses M > 100 Mo. These stars were responsible for the reionization of the…
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…
Understanding the formation of the first stars is one of the frontier topics in modern astrophysics and cosmology. Their emergence signaled the end of the cosmic dark ages, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, leading to a…
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 first generation of stars, often called Population III (or Pop III), form from metal-free primordial gas at redshifts 30 and below. They dominate the cosmic star formation history until redshifts 15 to 20, at which point the formation…
The first stars are assumed to be predominantly massive. Although, due to the low initial abundances of heavy elements the line-driven stellar winds are supposed to be inefficient in the first stars, these stars may loose a significant…
The nuclei of the lithium isotopes are fragile, easily destroyed, so that, at variance with most of the other elements, they cannot be formed in stars through steady hydrostatic nucleosynthesis. The 7Li isotope is synthesized during…
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 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…
The lithium plateau observed in halo stars has long appeared as a paradox in the general context of the lithium abundance behavior in stellar outer layers. First, the plateau is flat, second, the lithium abundance dispersion is extremely…
The nature of the first generation of stars in the Universe remains largely unknown. Observations imply the existence of massive primordial stars early in the history of the universe, and the standard theory for the growth of cosmic…
The massive First Stars (the first ones to contribute to the chemical enrichment of the Universe due to their short lifetimes) are long dead, and even though efforts to directly observe them in high redshift galaxies are underway, a step…