Related papers: Interstellar Atomic Abundances
Physical conditions within DLAs can reveal the star formation history, determine the chemical composition of the associated ISM, and hence document the first steps in the formation of present day galaxies. Here we present calculations that…
The cosmological origin of carbon, the fourth most abundant element in the Universe, is not well known and matter of heavy debate. We investigate the behavior of C/O to O/H in order to constrain the production mechanism of carbon. We…
Using high-quality spectra of the twin stars in the XO-2 binary system, we have detected significant differences in the chemical composition of their photospheres. The differences correlate strongly with the elements' dust condensation…
The development of our understanding of the gaseous component of the interstellar medium is reviewed. During the 20th century our picture of diffuse material in space has grown from a simple model of isolated clouds in thermal equilibrium…
Interstellar abundance determinations from fits to X-ray absorption edges often rely on the incorrect assumption that scattering is insignificant and can be ignored. We show instead that scattering contributes significantly to the…
Investigating the chemical complexity of the interstellar medium (ISM) is key for understanding its physical nature and evolution. In this work, we study parsec-scale interstellar dust clouds in the neutral ISM of the Milky Way using two…
Ionized nebulae are key to understanding the chemical composition and evolution of the Universe. Among these nebulae, H~{\sc ii} regions and planetary nebulae are particularly important as they provide insights into the present and past…
In this study, we investigate interstellar absorption lines along the line of sight toward the galactic low-mass X-ray binary Cygnus X-2. We combine absorption line data obtained from high-resolution X-ray spectra collected with Chandra and…
It is generally recognized that the interstellar medium has a vast range of densities and temperatures. While these two properties are usually anticorrelated with each other, there are nevertheless variations in their product, i.e., the…
Clusters of galaxies as the largest clearly defined objects in our Universe are ideal laboratories to study the distribution of the most abundant chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium and the history of their production. The…
Silicon and Strontium are key elements to explore the nucleosynthesis and chemical evolution of the Galaxy by measurements of very metal-poor stars. There are, however, only a few useful spectral lines of these elements in the optical range…
Diffuse and translucent molecular clouds fill a vast majority of the interstellar space in the galactic disk being thus the most typical objects of the Interstellar Medium (ISM). Recent advances in observational techniques of modern optical…
The mechanisms responsible for chemical depletion across diverse astrophysical environments are not yet fully understood. In this paper, we investigate chemical depletion in post-AGB/post-RGB binary stars hosting second-generation…
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…
The heavy element content ("metallicity") of the Universe is a record of the total star formation history. Gas-phase metallicity in galaxies, as well as its evolution with time, is of particular interest as a tracer of accretion and outflow…
We determined oxygen and iron abundances of the interstellar medium (ISM) using K-shell (O) and L-shell (Fe) X-ray photo-ionization edges towards Ultra luminous X-ray sources (ULXs). We determine the hydrogen column densities (n_H) towards…
This article is based on an invited talk given by V. P. Kulkarni at the 8th Cosmic Dust meeting. Dust has a profound effect on the physics and chemistry of the interstellar gas in galaxies and on the appearance of galaxies. Understanding…
Metal abundance and its evolution are studied for Mg II quasar absorption line systems from their weak, unsaturated spectral lines using stacked spectra from the archived data of Sloan Digital Sky Survey. They show an abundance pattern that…
We present a quantitative model for the infrared emission from dust in the diffuse interstellar medium. The model consists of a mixture of amorphous silicate grains and carbonaceous grains, each with a wide size distribution ranging from…
We study infrared emission of 17 isolated, diffuse clouds with masses of order solar masses, to test the hypothesis that grain property variations cause the apparently low gas-to-dust ratios that have been measured in those clouds. Maps of…