Related papers: New Dimensions of Galactic Chemical Evolution
Context. Elemental abundances are of prime importance to help us reconstruct the origin and evolution of stars and galaxies in our Universe. Sulfur abundances have not been as heavily studied as other elements, so some details regarding its…
New information on the relations between the Galactic disks, the halo, and satellite galaxies is being obtained from elemental abundances of stars having metallicities in the range -1.5 < [Fe/H] < -0.5. The first results for a sample of 26…
The uncertainties which still plague our understanding of the evolution of the light nuclides D, 3He and 4He in the Galaxy are described. Measurements of the local abundance of deuterium range over a factor of 3. The observed dispersion can…
Atomic diffusion and mixing processes in stellar interiors influence the structure and the surface composition of stars. Some of these processes cannot yet be modelled from the first principles. This limits their applicability in stellar…
Elemental abundances of stars are the result of the complex enrichment history of their galaxy. Interpretation of observed abundances requires flexible modeling tools to explore and quantify the information about Galactic chemical evolution…
The metallicity distribution function (MDF) of the Galactic bulge features a multi-peak shape, with a metal-poor peak at [Fe/H]=-0.3 dex and a metal-rich peak at [Fe/H]=+0.3 dex. This bimodality is also seen in [alpha/Fe] versus [Fe/H]…
Chemical tagging of stars based on their similar compositions can offer new insights about the star formation and dynamical history of the Milky Way. We investigate the feasibility of identifying groups of stars in chemical space by…
This paper contains the lectures I delivered during the 37th Saas-Fee Advanced Course in March 2007. It reviews all the main ingredients necessary to build galactic chemical evolution models with particular attention to the Milky Way and…
We study the sensitivity of presupernova evolution and supernova nucleosynthesis yields of massive stars to variations of the initial composition. We use the solar abundances from Lodders (2009), and compute two different initial stellar…
Massive ($\geq$8 $M_\odot$) stars perish via one of two fates: core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), which release synthesized heavy elements, or failed supernovae, thereby forming black holes. In the conventional Galactic chemical evolution…
Methods to determine abundances of the elements in the atmospheres of F, G, and K stars with precisions of 0.01-0.03 dex are reviewed. Such high-precision stellar abundances have led to the discovery of unexpected phenomena and relations…
We use our unified chemical and spectrophotometric evolutionary synthesis code to describe galaxies of various Hubble types. With stellar evolutionary tracks and element yields for 5 different metallicities we follow the spectrophotometric…
In these lectures I present a highly opinionated review of the observed patterns of metallicity and element abundance ratios in nearby spiral, irregular, and dwarf elliptical galaxies, with connection to a number of astrophysical issues…
We have extended our analytical chemical evolution modelling ideas for the Galaxy to the Magellanic Clouds. Unlike previous authors, we assume neither a steepened IMF nor selective galactic winds, since among the alpha-particle elements…
Understanding the history and the evolution of the Milky Way disc is one of the main goals of modern astrophysics. We study the velocity dispersion behaviour of Galactic disc stars as a function of the [Mg/Fe] ratio, which can be used as a…
Chemical clocks, based on age-sensitive stellar abundance ratios, offer a powerful and scalable approach to reconstruct the formation history of the Milky Way. This white paper outlines how wide-field, high-resolution spectroscopy can…
In this review I will discuss the comparison between model results and observational data for the Milky Way, the predictive power of such models as well as their limits. Such a comparison, known as Galactic archaeology, allows us to impose…
Understanding the evolution of carbon and iron in the Milky Way's halo is of importance because these two elements play crucial roles constraining star formation, Galactic assembly, and chemical evolution in the early Universe. Here, we…
Interstellar dust is a significant component of matter in the galaxies. The dust owns its origin and reprocessing in a wide range of astrophysical environments. In order to understand the origin and evolution of the distinct types of…
We present first results from a program to measure the chemical abundances of a large (N>30) sample of thick disk stars with the principal goal of investigating the formation history of the Galactic thick disk. Our analysis confirms…