Related papers: Chemical Abundances in High-Redshift Neutral Cloud…
The solar chemical composition is an important ingredient in our understanding of the formation, structure and evolution of both the Sun and our solar system. Furthermore, it is an essential reference standard against which the elemental…
In this paper we point out a previously unnoticed anticorrelation between the observed abundance ratio [X/Zn] (where Zn is assumed to be undepleted and X stands for the refractories Fe, Cr and Ni) and metal column density…
Much of what we know about molecular clouds, and by extension star formation, comes from molecular line observations. Interpreting these correctly requires knowledge of the underlying molecular abundances. Simulations of molecular clouds…
Observations of absorption lines in the spectra of distant QSOs offer a new approach for tracking the evolution of normal galaxies from early epochs to the present day. The damped Ly alpha systems are particularly suitable for measuring the…
The horizon for studies of element abundances has expanded dramatically in the last ten years. Once the domain of astronomers concerned chiefly with stars and nearby galaxies, this field has now become a key component of observational…
Damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs), seen in absorption against a background quasar, provide the most detailed probes available of element abundances in the Universe over > 90 % of its age. DLAs can be used to observationally measure the…
I introduce and review the data and analysis techniques used to measure abundances in the damped Lya systems, quasar absorption-line systems associated with galaxies in the early Universe. The observations and issues associated with their…
We have collected an heterogeneous sample of galaxies at redshifts 0.001<z<3.35 with the aim of exploring the evolution of the physical parameters and of the element abundances calculated by modelling the observed spectra. The evolution…
We determined C, N and alpha-element relative abundances in the gas surrounding six QSOs at an average redshift of < z > ~ 2.4, by studying six narrow associated absorption systems in UVES high-resolution spectra. We found five systems with…
Abundance observations indicate the presence of rapid-neutron capture (i.e., r-process) elements in old Galactic halo and globular cluster stars. These observations demonstrate that the earliest generations of stars in the Galaxy,…
The amount of deuterium relative to hydrogen (D/H) in clouds with close to primordial abundance seen at high redshift in the spectra of distant quasars currently provides the best estimate of the baryonic density of the Universe. The first…
Ground- and space-based observations of stellar heavy element abundances are providing a clearer picture of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. A large number of (r)apid and (s)low neutron capture process elements, including the first…
We present the study of CI/H$_2$ relative abundance in the diffuse cold neutral medium. Using the chemical and thermal balance model we calculated the dependence of CI/H$_2$ on the main parameters of the medium: hydrogen number density,…
The past decade has led to significant improvements in our understanding of the physical structure of the molecular cores of cold dark clouds. Observational efforts, in combination with improved knowledge of cloud structure, now provide…
The study of carbon and oxygen abundances yields information on the time evolution and nucleosynthetic origins of these elements, yet remains relatively unexplored. At low metallicities (12+log(O/H) < 8.0), nebular carbon measurements are…
We derive the chlorine abundances in a sample of nearby planetary nebulae (PNe) and H II regions that have some of the best available spectra. We use a nearly homogeneous procedure to derive the abundance in each object and find that the…
The compositions of stars are a critical diagnostic tool for many topics in astronomy such as the evolution of our Galaxy, the formation of planets, and the uniqueness of the Sun. Previous spectroscopic measurements indicate a large…
Chemical abundances in the X-ray halos (also known as the intracluster medium, ICM) of clusters and groups of galaxies can be measured via prominent emission line features in their X-ray spectra. Elemental abundances are footprints of…
We present elemental abundance measurements for 9 damped Ly-alpha systems (DLAs) and 1 sub-DLA at 0.1 < z < 1.5 from recent observations with the Multiple Mirror Telescope. Most of these absorbers are found to be metal-poor, while 2 are…
Neutron-capture elements in low metallicity Galactic halo stars vary widely both in overall contents and detailed abundance patterns. This review discusses recent observational results on the n-capture elements, discussing the implications…