Related papers: Where are the missing cosmic metals ?
In typical astrophysical environments, the abundance of heavy elements ranges from 0.001 to 2 times the solar concentration. Lower abundances have been seen in select stars in the Milky Way's halo and in two quasar absorption systems at…
The chemical enrichment of dust and metals are vital processes in constraining the star formation history of the universe. Previously, the dust masses of high-redshift star-forming galaxies have been determined through their far-infrared…
We present an analysis of the flow of metals through the circumgalactic medium (CGM) in the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) simulations of galaxy formation, ranging from isolated dwarfs to $L*$ galaxies. We find that nearly all…
Four recent observational results have challenged our understanding of high--redshift galaxies, as they require the presence of far more ultraviolet photons than should be emitted by normal stellar populations. First, there is significant…
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 study cosmic metal enrichment via AMR hydrodynamical simulations in a (10 Mpc/h)$^3$ volume following the Pop III-Pop II transition and for different Pop III IMFs. We have analyzed the joint evolution of metal enrichment on galactic and…
As galaxies evolve, they must enrich and exchange gas with the surrounding medium, but the timing of these processes and how much gas is involved remain poorly understood. In this work, we leverage metals as tracers of past gas flows to…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is fed by galaxy outflows and accretion of intergalactic gas, but its mass, heavy element enrichment, and relation to galaxy properties are poorly constrained by observations. In a survey of the outskirts of…
The temperature distribution of the cosmic gas-phase oxygen at z~3 is determined by combining high resolution cosmological simulations with the observed, (rest-frame) V-band galaxy LF. The simulations invoke three different stellar IMFs, a…
The formation of supermassive stars has generally been studied under the assumption of rapid accretion of pristine metal-free gas. Recently it was found, however, that gas enriched to metallicities up to $Z \sim 10^{-3}$ Z$_{\odot}$ can…
We investigate the distribution of metals in the cosmological volume at $z\sim3$, in particular, provided by massive population III (Pop III) stars using a cosmological $N$-body simulation in which a model of Pop III star formation is…
Local massive early-type galaxies are believed to have completed most of their star formation $\sim10$Gyr ago and evolved without having substantial star formation since. If so, their progenitors should have roughly solar stellar…
When and how did galaxies form and their metals accumulate? Over the last decade, this has moved from an archeological question to a live investigation: there is now a broad picture of the evolution of galaxies in dark matter halos: their…
Stars and gas in galaxies, hot intracluster medium, and intergalactic photo-ionized gas make up at most half of the baryons that are expected to be present in the universe. The majority of baryons are still missing and are expected to be…
Ancient, long-lived stars remain present in all components of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Born a few hundred million after the Big Bang and during a time that marked the very beginning of the chemical evolution, these stars display very…
Metal-poor stars in the Milky Way are local relics of the epoch of the first stars and the first galaxies. However, a low metallicity does not prove that a star formed in this ancient era, as metal-poor stars form over a range of redshift…
We apply the phenomenological model used to explain the abundances of Fe and r-process elements in very metal-poor stars in the Galaxy to [Fe/H] of damped Ly alpha systems. It is assumed that the first stars formed after the Big Bang were…
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…
We study star formation history and stellar metallicity distribution in galaxies in a Lambda cold dark matter universe using a hydrodynamic cosmological simulation. Our model predicts star formation rate declining in time exponentially from…
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…