Related papers: Observations of Neutron-Capture Elements in the Ea…
We measured new abundances of so-called light neutron-capture of first peak elements using local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) 1D analysis; this analysis resulted in a sample of 11 very metal-poor stars, from [Fe/H]=-2.5 to [Fe/H]=-3.4,…
In recent years, Galactic archaeology has become a particularly vibrant field of astronomy, with its main focus set on the oldest stars of our Galaxy. In most cases, these stars have been identified as the most metal-poor. However, the…
Heavy element abundances in extremely metal-poor stars provide strong constraints on the processes of forming these elements in the first stars. We attempt to determine precise abundances of strontium in a homogeneous sample of extremely…
We report preliminary results concerning the detailed chemical composition of metal poor stars belonging to close ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (hereafter UfDSphs). The abundances have been determined thanks to spectra obtained with X-Shooter,…
The early chemical evolution of the Galaxy and the Universe is vital to our understanding of a host of astrophysical phenomena. Since the most metal-poor Galactic stars (with metallicities down to [Fe/H]\sim-5.5) are relics from the…
The abundance patterns of metal-poor stars provide us a wealth of chemical information about various stages of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. In particular, these stars allow us to study the formation and evolution of the elements…
Low-energy neutrinos from the cosmic background are captured by objects in the sky that contain material susceptible of single beta decay. Neutrons, which compose most of a neutron star, capture low-energy neutrinos from the cosmic neutrino…
We outline two important effects that are missing from most evaluations of the dark matter capture rate in neutron stars. As dark matter scattering with nucleons in the star involves large momentum transfer, nucleon structure must be taken…
It is well-established that the vast majority of metal-poor Galactic halo stars shows evidence for enrichment by solely massive stars. Recent observations have identified more varied behavior in the pattern of elemental abundances measured…
We consider the contribution of neutron stars and black holes to the dynamical mass of galactic halos. In particular, we show that if these compact objects were produced by an early generation of stars with initial metallicity less than…
The chemical abundances of elements such as barium and the lanthanides are essential to understand the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in the early Universe as well as the contribution of different neutron capture processes (for example…
We present new measurements of the abundances of carbon and oxygen derived from high-excitation C I and O I absorption lines in metal-poor halo stars, with the aim of clarifying the main sources of these two elements in the early stages of…
Recently Lian et al. (2023), thanks to Gaia-ESO data, studied the chemical evolution of neutron-capture elements in the regime [Fe/H]>-1. We aim here to complement this study down to [Fe/H]=-3, and focus on Ba, Y, Sr, and abundance ratios…
Growing interests in neutron star (NS) mergers as the origin of r-process elements have sprouted since the discovery of evidence for the ejection of these elements from a short-duration gamma-ray burst. The hypothesis of a NS merger origin…
Neutron-star mergers were recently confirmed as sites of rapid-neutron-capture (r-process) nucleosynthesis. However, in Galactic chemical evolution models, neutron-star mergers alone cannot reproduce the observed element abundance patterns…
The origin of the Galactic halo is one of the fundamental topics linking the study of galaxy formation and evolution to cosmology. We aim at deriving precise and accurate stellar parameters, Mg abundances, and ages for a sample of…
Recent dynamical analysis based on Gaia data have revealed major accretion events in Milky Way's history. Nevertheless, our understanding of the primordial Galaxy is hindered because the bona fide identification of the most metal-poor and…
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 investigated the poorly-understood origin of nitrogen in the early Galaxy by determining N abundances in 35 extremely metal-poor halo giants (22 stars have [Fe/H]<-3.0) using the C and O abundances determined in Paper V. Because any…
We present abundances of Mn, Cu, Zn and various light and heavy elements for a sample of barium and normal giant stars, and present correlations between abundances contributed to different degrees by the weak-s, main-s, and r-processes of…