Related papers: Early Galactic Li, Be and B: Implications on Cosmi…
Massive stars, by which we mean those stars exploding as core collapse supernovae, play a pivotal role in the evolution of the Universe. Therefore, the understanding of their evolution and explosion is fundamental in many branches of…
The first stars in the Universe are predicted to have been much more massive than the Sun. Gravitational condensation accompanied by cooling of the primordial gas due to molecular hydrogen, yields a minimum fragmentation scale of a few…
Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the cosmic baryon density from cosmic microwave background anisotropies together predict a primordial Li7 abundance a factor of 2--3 higher than that observed in galactic halo dwarf stars. A recent…
The theory of diffusive particle acceleration explains the spectral properties of the cosmic rays below energies of approx. 10^6 GeV as produced at strong shocks in supernova remnants (SNR's). To supply the observed flux of cosmic rays, a…
The cosmic microwave background and the cosmic expansion can be interpreted as evidence that the Universe underwent an extremely hot and dense phase about 14 Gyr ago. The nucleosynthesis computations tell us that the Universe emerged from…
Galactic cosmic rays are widely believed to be accelerated in expanding shock waves initiated by supernova explosions. The theory of diffusive shock acceleration of cosmic rays is now well established, but two fundamental questions remain…
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…
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…
We analyze the results of recent measurements of Galactic cosmic ray (GCRs) energy spectra and the spectra of nonthermal emission from supernova remnants (SNRs) in order to determine their consistency with GCR origin in SNRs. It is shown…
We compute the production of cosmic rays in the dynamical superbubble produced by a cluster of massive stars. Stellar winds, supernova remnants and turbulence are found to accelerate particles so efficiently that the nonlinear feedback of…
We present the abundances of Li, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, and Ba in a wide metallicity range ($-2.8 \le$ [Fe/H] $\le -1.5$). Using the differential technique allowed us to obtain an unprecedented low…
In the 1960s, the remnants of supernova explosions (SNRs) were indicated as a possible source of galactic cosmic rays through the Diffusive Shock Acceleration (DSA) mechanism. Since then, the observation of gamma-ray emission from…
Using recent measurements of the spectrum and chemical composition of the highest energy cosmic rays, we consider the sources of these particles. We find that the data strongly prefers models in which the sources of the ultra-high energy…
Astrospheres and wind bubbles of massive stars are believed to be sources of cosmic rays with energies $E\lesssim 1\,$TeV. These particles are not directly detectable, but their impact on surrounding matter, in particular ionisation of…
The first generation of stars was formed from primordial gas. Numerical simulations suggest that the first stars were predominantly very massive, with typical masses M > 100 Mo. These stars were responsible for the reionization of the…
An overview of the sources for heavy elements in the early Galaxy is given. It is shown that observations of abundances in metal-poor stars can be used along with a basic understanding of stellar models to guide the search for the source of…
Several stars at the low-metallicity extreme of the Galactic halo show large spreads of [Pb/hs]. Theoretically, a s-process pattern should be obtained from an AGB star with fixed metallicity and initial mass. For the third dredge-up and the…
The origin of the highest energy cosmic rays remains an enigma. They offer a window to new physics, including tests of physical laws relevant to their propagation and interactions, at energies unattainable by terrestrial accelerators. They…
The origin of the highest energy cosmic rays is still unknown. The discovery of their sources will reveal the workings of the most energetic astrophysical accelerators in the universe. Current observations show a spectrum consistent with an…
The strong shocks in young supernova remnants (SNRs) should accelerate cosmic rays (CRs) and no doubt exists that relativistic electrons are produced in SNRs. However, direct evidence that SNRs produce CR nuclei depends on seeing an…