Chemical Abundances over Cosmic Time

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Cosmology: Observations, Galaxies: Abundances, Galaxies: Ism, Galaxies: Evolution, Intergalactic Medium, Quasars: Absorption Lines, Missions: First

Scientific paper

It has recently become possible to measure directly the abundances of several chemical elements in a variety of environments at redshifts up to z ~= 4. In this review I summarise the latest observations of Lyman break galaxies, the Lyman alpha forest and damped Lyman alpha systems with a view to uncovering any clues which these data may offer to the first episodes of star formation. The picture which is emerging is one where the universe at z = 3 already included many of the constituents of today's galaxies--even at these early times we see evidence for Populations I and II stars, while the `smoking gun' for Population III objects may be hidden in the chemical composition of the lowest density regions of the IGM, yet to be deciphered. The FIRST mission promises to extend such abundance studies to include components of the high redshift universe which are obscured by dust and are therefore probably missing from the current census of metals over the cosmic ages.

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