Related papers: Population III by Popular Demand - Progress and Pr…
Observing the first generation of Population III (Pop III) stars is one of the most demanding challenges in astronomy. Indeed, Pop III stars are expected to predominantly form within faint minihalos at early times with a top-heavy initial…
Since the Hipparcos mission and recent large scale surveys in the optical and the near-infrared, new constraints have been obtained on the structure and evolution history of the Milky Way. The population synthesis approach is a useful tool…
Our current understanding of the chemical evolution of the Universe is that a first generation of stars was formed out of primordial material, completely devoid of metals (Pop III stars). This first population of stars comprised massive…
The dwarf galaxy companions to the Milky Way are unique cosmological laboratories. With luminosities as low as 10^-7 L_MW, they inhabit the lowest mass dark matter halos known to host stars and are presently the most direct tracers of the…
We present a special science case for an intermediate resolution multi-object IR spectrograph for the VLT. We have constructed new models for massive Population III stars and metal-free stellar populations (see Schaerer 2001). The…
With the new discoveries enabled thanks to the recent space missions, stellar physics is going through a revolution. However, these discoveries opened the door to many new questions that require more observations. The European Space…
Direct observational searches for Population III (Pop III) stars at high redshift are faced with the question of how to select the most promising targets for spectroscopic follow-up. To help answer this, we use a large-scale cosmological…
While the Milky Way Nuclear star cluster has been studied extensively, how it formed is uncertain. Studies have shown it contains a solar and supersolar metallicity population that may have formed in-situ, along with a subsolar metallicity…
Determining the demographics of the Galactic planetary nebula (PN) population is an important goal to further our understanding of this intriguing phase of stellar evolution. The Galactic population has more than doubled in number over the…
Population III stars supplied the first light and metals in the Universe, setting the pace of re-ionisation and early chemical enrichment. In dense haloes their evolution can be strongly influenced by the energy released when WIMPs…
The absence of direct high redshift observations poses a significant challenge in understanding the properties of first stars. Nonetheless, the cumulative effect of entire stellar populations can be studied with current data. In this work…
The redistribution of stars in galactic disks is an important aspect of disk galaxy evolution. Stars that efficiently migrate in such a way that does not also appreciably heat their orbits can drastically affect the stellar populations…
The discovery of an increasing number of Jupiter-like planets in orbit around other stars (or extra-solar planets) is a promising first step toward the search for Life in the Universe. We review all aspects of the question: - definition of…
The most iron-deficient stars in the Milky Way provide important observational constraints on the nature of astrophysical objects that have enriched the primordial gas with heavy elements from which these stars were formed. Among them, the…
I present a brief review of the stellar population properties of massive galaxies, focusing on early-type galaxies in particular, with emphasis on recent results from the ATLAS3D Survey. I discuss the occurrence of young stellar ages, cold…
The abundance patterns of metal-poor stars provide us a wealth of chemical information about various stages of cosmic chemical evolution. In particular, these stars allow us to study the formation and evolution of the elements, and the…
We present the stellar population content of early-type galaxies from the Atlas3D survey. Using spectra integrated within apertures covering up to one effective radius, we apply two methods: one based on measuring line-strength indices and…
Very metal-poor massive stars in the Local Group are our best proxies for the Universe's first stars, making them essential for modeling reionization and early galactic chemical evolution. Studying such stars in our Local Universe is key to…
The mass of the Milky Way is a critical quantity which, despite decades of research, remains uncertain within a factor of two. Until recently, most studies have used dynamical tracers in the inner regions of the halo, relying on…
The difference in density profiles of the contributions from different density peaks to dark matter halos results in certain expectations about the Milky Way's stellar halo. We cut our simulated halo stars into two populations: those…