Related papers: Tuning the Clock: Uranium and Thorium Chronometers…
The productions of thorium and uranium are key ingredients in $r$-process nucleo-cosmochronology. With the combination of improved nuclear and stellar data, we have made detailed investigations on the $r$-process abundance pattern in the…
The recent discovery by Cayrel et al. of U in CS 31082-001 along with Os and Ir at greatly enhanced abundances but with [Fe/H]=-2.9 strongly reinforces the argument that there are at least two kinds of SNII sources for r-nuclei. One source…
The discovery of the second highly $r$-process-enhanced, extremely metal-poor star, CS 31082-001 ([Fe/H] $= -2.9$) has provided a powerful new tool for age determination, by virtue of the detection and measurement of the radioactive species…
During an ESO-VLT large program devoted to high-resolution spectroscopy of extremely metal-poor stars selected from the H&K survey of Beers and colleagues, a [Fe/H] giant star was found to be as enriched in neutron-capture r-process…
We present a high-resolution spectroscopic analysis of the bright (V=11.7), extreme halo giant CS31082-001 ([Fe/H] = -2.9), obtained in an ESO-VLT Large Programme dedicated to very metal-poor stars. We find CS31082-001 to be extremely rich…
The 'First Stars' programme revealed the metal-poor halo star CS 31082-001 to be r-process and actinide rich, including the first measurement of a uranium abundance for an old star. To better characterise and understand such rare objects,…
The ages of the oldest stars in the Galaxy indicate when star formation began, and provide a minimum age for the Universe. Radioactive dating of meteoritic material and stars relies on comparing the present abundance ratios of radioactive…
Observations of metal-poor Galactic halo stars indicate that the abundance pattern of the (heaviest) neutron-capture elements is consistent with the scaled solar system r-process abundances. Utilizing the radioactive (r-process) element…
We present detailed abundance observations of the metal-poor ([Fe/H] = --2.0) Galactic halo star BD+17 3248. We have detected gold in this star, for the first time in any halo star. We also detected a weak line at 3859.60 A in the spectrum…
The very-metal-poor halo star CS31082-001 was discovered to be very strongly r-process-enhanced during the course of a VLT+UVES high-resolution follow-up of metal-poor stars identified in the HK survey of Beers and colleagues. Both the…
Nuclear chronometer, which predicts the ages of the oldest stars by comparing the present and initial abundances of long-lived radioactive nuclides, provides an independent dating technique for the cosmos. A new nuclear chronometer called…
In a previous paper we were able to measure the abundance of uranium and thorium in the very-metal poor halo giant BPS CS 31082-001, but only obtained an upper limit for the abundance of lead (Pb). We have got from ESO 17 hours of…
Rapid neutron-capture (i.e., r-process) nucleosynthesis calculations, employing internally consistent and physically realistic nuclear physics input (QRPA beta-decay rates and the ETFSI-Q nuclear mass model), have been made. These…
Nucleocosmochronology involves the use of the abundances of radioactive nuclear species and their radiogenic decay daughters to establish the finite age of the elements and the time scale for their formation. While there exist radioactive…
We revisit the abundances of neutron-capture elements in the metal-poor ([Fe/H]=-2.9) r-process-rich halo star CS 31082-001. Partly motivated by the development of the new near-ultraviolet Cassegrain U-band Efficient Spectrograph for the…
We present age estimates for the newly discovered very r-process enhanced metal-poor star HE 1523-0901 ([Fe/H]=-2.95) based on the radioactive decay of Th and U. The bright (V=11.1) giant was found amongst a sample of bright metal-poor…
We report an abundance analysis for the highly r-process-enhanced (r-II) star CS 29497-004, a very metal-poor giant with Teff = 5013K and [Fe/H]=-2.85, whose nature was initially discovered in the course of the HERES project. Our analysis…
First results are reported of a new abundance study of neutron-capture elements in the ultra-metal-poor (UMP; [Fe/H] = -3.1) halo field giant star CS 22892-052. Using new high resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra, abundances of more…
We have combined new high-resolution spectra obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground-based facilities to make a comprehensive new abundance analysis of the metal-poor, halo star BD +17^\circ 3248. We have detected the…
With a sample of 22 metal-poor stars, we demonstrate that the heavy element abundance pattern (Z > 55) is the same as the r-process contributions to the solar nebula. This bolsters the results of previous studies that there is a universal…