Related papers: SDSS J102915.14+172927.9: Revisiting the chemical …

Context: The first stars produced the first heavy elements and set the stage for the formation of the first galaxies. Accurate chemical abundances of ultra metal-poor stars ([Fe/H]<-4) can be used to infer properties of the first stars, and…

Spectroscopic analysis of the Galactic halo star SDSS J102915+172927 has shown it to have a very low heavy element abundance, Z < 7.4 10-7, with [Fe/H] = -4.89 plus/minus 0.10 and an upper limit on the C abundance of [C/H] < -4.5. The low…

The most metal-poor stars are the relics of the early chemical evolution of the Galaxy. Their chemical composition is an important tool to constrain the nucleosynthesis in the first generation of stars. The aim is to observe a sample of…

Only a handful of stars have been identified with an iron abundance [Fe/H]<-5, and only one at [Fe/H]<-7. These stars have very large carbon-to-iron ratios, with A(C)~7.0, most likely due to fallback in core-collapse supernovae, which makes…

Context: The discovery and chemical analysis of extremely metal-poor stars permit a better understanding of the star formation of the first generation of stars and of the Universe emerging from the Big Bang. aims: We report the study of a…

Context. The first generation of stars formed in the Galaxy left behind the chemical signatures of their nucleosynthesis in the interstellar medium, visible today in the atmospheres of low-mass stars formed afterwards. Sampling the…

We present the results of an analysis for 107 extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars with metallicities less than [Fe/H] = -3.0, identified from medium-resolution spectra in SDSS. We follow a methodology based on comparisons of the observed…

The origin of carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars enriched with both s and r elements is highly debated. Detailed abundances of these types of stars are crucial to understand the nature of their progenitors. The aim of this investigation is to…

Extremely metal-poor stars provide us with indirect information on the first generations of massive stars. The TOPoS survey has been designed to increase the census of these stars and to provide a chemical inventory that is as detailed as…

The formation of stars is a key process in the early universe with far reaching consequences for further cosmic evolution. While stars forming from truly primordial gas are thought to be considerably more massive than our Sun, stars in the…

Approximately 20% of very metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] < -2.0) are strongly enhanced in carbon ([C/Fe] > +1.0). Such stars are referred to as carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars. We present a chemical abundance analysis based on high…

We are conducting a high-resolution follow-up of candidate EMP stars extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; York et al. 2000) using UVES at the VLT. Three of the programme stars, SDSS J0912+0216, SDSS J1036+1212 and SDSS…

The most metal-poor stars in the Milky Way witnessed the early phases of formation of the Galaxy, and have chemical compositions that are close to the pristine mixture from Big Bang nucleosynthesis, polluted by one or few supernovae. Only…

The relative importance of metals and dust grains in the formation of the first low-mass stars has been a subject of debate. The recently discovered Galactic halo star SDSS J102915+172927 (Caffau et al. 2011) has a mass less than 0.8 Msun…

We present an analysis of high-resolution Keck/HIRES spectroscopic observations of J0815+4729, an extremely carbon-enhanced, iron-poor dwarf star. These high-quality data allow us to derive a metallicity of [Fe/H]$=-5.49{\pm}0.14$ from the…

The early Universe presented a star formation environment that was almost devoid of heavy elements. The lowest metallicity stars thus provide a unique window into the earliest Galactic stages, but are exceedingly rare and difficult to find.…

The first stars formed out of pristine gas, causing them to be so massive that none are expected to have survived until today. If their direct descendants were sufficiently low-mass stars, such stars could exist today and would be…

Using the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)/Multi-Object Dual Spectrograph (MODS), we have obtained optical spectroscopy of one of the most metal-poor dwarf star-forming galaxies (SFG) in the local Universe, J2229+2725. This galaxy with a…

We report the discovery of the carbon-rich ultra metal-poor unevolved star J0815+4729. This dwarf star was selected from SDSS/BOSS as a metal-poor candidate and follow-up spectroscopic observations at medium-resolution were obtained with…

One of the primary objectives of the TOPoS survey is to search for the most metal-poor stars. Our search has led to the discovery of one of the most iron-poor objects known, SDSS\,J092912.32+023817.0. This object is a multiple system, in…