Related papers: Galactic 26Al traces metal loss through hot chimne…
26Al is a short-lived radioactive isotope thought to be injected into the interstellar medium (ISM) by massive stellar winds and supernovae. However, all-sky maps of 26Al emission show a distribution with a much larger scale height and…
Massive stars form in groups and their winds and supernova explosions create superbubbles up to kpc in size. Their ejecta are important for the dynamics of the interstellar medium and chemical evolution models. However, ejecta kinematics…
Context. The 1.8 MeV gamma-rays corresponding to the decay of the radioactive isotope Al-26 (with a half-life of 0.72 Myr) have been observed by the SPI detector on the INTEGRAL spacecraft and extensively used as a tracer of star formation…
The presence of radioactive $^{26}$Al at 1.8 MeV reflects ongoing nucleosynthesis in the Milky Way. Diffuse emission from its decay can be measured with gamma-ray telescopes in space. The intensity, line shape, and spatial distribution of…
Emission from the radioactive trace element $^{26}$Al has been observed throughout the Milky Way with the COMPTEL and INTEGRAL satellites. In particular the Doppler shifts measured with INTEGRAL connect $^{26}$Al with superbubbles, which…
We performed a spectroscopic study of the 1809 keV gamma-ray line from 26Al decay in the Galaxy using the SPI imaging spectrometer with its high-resolution Ge detector camera on the INTEGRAL observatory. We analyzed observations of the…
Long-lived radioactive by-products of nucleosynthesis provide an opportunity to trace the flow of ejecta away from its sources for times beyond where ejecta can be seen otherwise. Gamma rays from such radioactive decay in interstellar space…
High energy resolution spectroscopy of the 1.8 MeV radioactive decay line of 26Al with the SPI instrument on board the INTEGRAL satellite has recently revealed that diffuse 26Al has large velocities in comparison to other components of the…
Gamma-ray line emission from the radioactive decay of 26Al reflects nucleosynthesis in massive stars and supernovae. We use INTEGRAL 26Al measurements to characterize the distribution and characteristics of 26Al source regions throughout…
Context. The diffuse gamma-ray emission of $^{26}{\rm Al}$ at 1.8 MeV reflects ongoing nucleosynthesis in the Milky Way, and traces massive-star feedback in the interstellar medium due to its 1 Myr radioactive lifetime. Interstellar-medium…
Recent observations of the diffuse Galactic gamma-ray glow at 1.809 MeV, attributed to the radioactive decay of 26Al, point towards a massive star origin of this radioactive isotope. Wolf Rayet stars and core-collapse supernovae appear to…
Gamma-rays from radioactive 26Al (half life ~7.2 10^5 yr) provide a 'snapshot' view of ongoing nucleosynthesis in the Galaxy. The Galaxy is relatively transparent to such gamma-rays, and emission has been found concentrated along the plane…
Gamma-rays from the decay of $^{26}$Al offer a stringent constraint on the Galaxy's global star formation rate over the past million years, supplementing other methods for quantifying the recent Galactic star formation rate, such as…
We develop a new method to account for the finite lifetimes of stars and trace individual abundances within a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. At variance with previous methods, based on the storage of the (binned) past star…
Gamma-ray line observations provide a versatile tool for studies of nucleosynthesis processes and supernova physics. In particular, the observation of radioactive species in the interstellar medium probes recent nucleosynthesis activity on…
Diffuse emission is often challenging since it is undetectable by most instruments, which are generally dedicated to point-source studies. The $^{26}$Al emission is a good illustration: the only available $^{26}$Al map to date has been…
We present theoretical mass estimates of $^{26}$Al and $^{60}$Fe throughout the Galaxy, performed with a numerical chemical evolution model including detailed nucleosynthesis prescriptions for stable and radioactive nuclides. We compared…
Short-lived radionuclides, such as 26Al and 60Fe, are tracers of star formation. Therefore, their abundances can unravel the recent star formation history of the host galaxy. In view of future gamma-ray surveys, we predict the masses and…
Theoretical and observational arguments suggest that there is a large amount of hot ($\sim 10^6$ K), diffuse gas residing in the Milky Way's halo, while its total mass and spatial distribution are still unclear. In this work, we present a…
Massive stars are one of the most important and investigated astrophysical production sites of $^{26}$Al, a short-lived radioisotope with $\sim$ 1 Myr half-life. Its short lifetime prevents us from observing its complete chemical history,…