Related papers: Early Chemical Evolution of Galaxies
In this paper we study the very early phases of the evolution of our Galaxy by means of a chemical evolution model which reproduces most of the observational constraints in the solar vicinity and in the disk. We have restricted our analysis…
The early chemical evolution of the Galaxy and the Universe is vital to our understanding of a host of astrophysical phenomena. Since the most metal-poor Galactic stars (with metallicities down to [Fe/H]\sim-5.5) are relics from the…
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 oldest stars in the universe retain to a great extent detailed information on the chemical composition of the interstellar medium at the time of their birth. Hence the earliest phases of Galactic chemical evolution and nucleosynthesis…
The earliest phases of the chemical evolution of our Galaxy are analysed in the light of the recent VLT results (concerning abundance patterns in the most metal-poor stars of the Galactic halo) and of stellar nucleosynthesis calculations.…
Our knowledge of galactic chemical evolution is currently limited to observations of Milky Way stars and H II regions of nearby galaxies. Damped Lyman~$\alpha$ systems offer a new approach for tracking the evolution of normal galaxies from…
Status quo and perspectives of standard chemical evolution models of Local Group galaxies are summarized, discussing what we have learnt from them, what we know we have not learnt yet, and what I think we will learn in the near future. It…
Metals -- heavy elements synthesized during various phases of stellar evolution or during supernova explosions -- play a fundamental role in shaping galaxy evolution. In fact, their relative abundances, spatial distribution, and scaling…
Chemical evolution of galaxies brings together ideas on stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis with theories of galaxy formation, star formation and galaxy evolution, with all their associated uncertainties. In a new perspective brought…
The massive First Stars (the first ones to contribute to the chemical enrichment of the Universe due to their short lifetimes) are long dead, and even though efforts to directly observe them in high redshift galaxies are underway, a step…
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…
Chemical abundances provide important clues to the evolution of galaxies. Ionized nebulae are one of the main sources of chemical abundance measurements, especially in external galaxies. Studies of H II regions have shown that the overall…
In popular cold dark matter cosmological scenarios, stars may have first appeared in significant numbers around a redshift of 10 or so, as the gas within protogalactic halos with virial temperatures in excess of 20,000 K (corresponding to…
The colors and chemical abundances of early-type galaxies at redshifts z<0.3 are studied using a sample of nearly 9000 galaxies, selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using morphological and spectral criteria. In this sample, redder…
Nucleosynthetic signatures in common between the gas responsible for the high redshift Lyman alpha forest and a subsample of extremely metal poor stars are found. A simple mass loss model of chemical evolution with physically motivated…
Adopting a single-zone framework, with accretion of primordial gas on a free-fall timescale, the chemical evolution of the Galactic bulge is calculated, assuming (i) a corresponding rapid timescale for star formation, and (ii) an initial…
Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, collectively termed metals, were created inside stars and dispersed through space at the final stages of stellar evolution. The relative amounts of different isotopes (variants of the same element…
Because of their low gravitational energies dwarf galaxies are greatly exposed to energetical influences by the interstellar medium, like e.g.\ stellar radiation, winds or explosions, or by their environment. While the metallicity depletion…
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…
Since stellar populations enhance particular element abundances according to the yields and lifetimes of the stellar progenitors, the chemical evolution of galaxies serves as one of the key tools that allows the tracing of galaxy evolution.…