Related papers: How did the metals in a giant star originate?
The external pollution of the first stars in the Galaxy is investigated. The first stars were born in clouds composed of the pristine gas without heavy elements. These stars accreted gas polluted with heavy elements while they still…
The chemically most primitive stars provide constraints on the nature of the first stellar objects that formed in the Universe; elements other than hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium within these objects were generated by…
We show that the "puzzling" chemical composition observed in the extremely metal poor star HE0107-5240 may be naturally explained by the concurrent pollution of at least two supernovae. In the simplest possible model a supernova of quite…
Metal-poor stars provide the fossil record of Galactic chemical evolution and the nucleosynthesis processes that took place at the earliest times in the history of our Galaxy. From detailed abundance studies of low mass, extremely…
Two alternative scenarios concerning the origin and evolution of extremely metal-poor halo stars are investigated. The first one assumes that the stars have been completely metal-free initially and produced observed carbon and nitrogen…
The early Universe had a chemical composition consisting of hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium1, almost all other elements were created in stars and supernovae. The mass fraction, Z, of elements more massive than helium, is called…
We present magnesium abundances derived from high resolution spectra using several Mg I and two high excitation Mg II lines for 19 metal-poor stars with [Fe/H] values between -1.1 and +0.2. The main goal is to search for systematic…
We report a detailed abundance analysis for HE0107-5240, a halo giant with [Fe/H]_NLTE=-5.3. This star was discovered in the course of follow-up medium-resolution spectroscopy of extremely metal-poor candidates selected from the digitized…
The chemical composition of the most metal-deficient stars reflects the composition of the gas from which they formed. These old stars provide crucial clues to the star formation history and the synthesis of chemical elements in the early…
We discuss the origin of HE0107-5240 which is the most metal poor star yet observed ([Fe/H] = -5.3). Its discovery has an important bearing on the question of the observability of "first generation" stars. In common with other metal-poor…
It has been proposed theoretically that the first generation of stars in the Universe (population III) would be as massive as 100 solar masses (100Mo), because of inefficient cooling of the precursor gas clouds. Recently, the most…
Metal-poor stars hold the key to our understanding of the origin of the elements and the chemical evolution of the Universe. This chapter describes the process of discovery of these rare stars, the manner in which their surface abundances…
We have derived abundances of O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Fe, Ni and Ba for 43 metal-poor field stars in the solar neighbourhood with iron abundances [Fe/H] ranging from -0.4 to -3.0. Total abundance errors are estimated to about…
The recent discovery of a hyper metal-poor (HMP) star, whose metallicity Fe/H is smaller than 1/100,000 of the solar ratio, together with one earlier HMP star, has raised a challenging question if these HMP stars are the actual first…
The first galaxies contain stars born out of gas with little or no metals. The lack of metals is expected to inhibit efficient gas cooling and star formation but this effect has yet to be observed in galaxies with oxygen abundance relative…
The emergence of the first sources of light at redshifts of z ~ 10-30 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the Universe to one of increasing complexity. We review recent progress in our understanding of the formation of…
The study of chemical abundances in stars with planets is an important ingredient for the models of formation and evolution of planetary systems. In order to determine accurate abundances, it is crucial to have a reliable set of atmospheric…
The most metal-poor stars found in the Galaxy and in nearby galaxies are witnesses of the early evolution of the Universe. In a general picture in which we expect the metallicity to increase monotonically with time, as a result of the metal…
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…
We present an elemental abundance analysis for four newly discovered ultra metal-poor stars from the Hamburg/ESO survey, with $\mathrm{[Fe/H]}\leq-4$. Based on high-resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra, we derive abundances for 17…