Cosmic Chemical Evolution

Details Cosmic Chemical Evolution Cosmic Chemical Evolution

1999-03-13

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9903207v2

Astrophys.J.519:L109-L113,1999

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

ApJ(Letters) in press, 15 latex pages and 4 figures

Scientific paper

10.1086/312123

Numerical simulations of standard cosmological scenarios have now reached the degree of sophistication required to provide tentative answers to the fundamental question: Where and when were the heavy elements formed? Averaging globally, these simulations give a metallicity that increases from 1% of the solar value at $z=3$ to 20% at present. This conclusion is, in fact, misleading, as it masks the very strong dependency of metallicity on local density. At every epoch higher density regions have much higher metallicity than lower density regions. Moreover, the highest density regions quickly approach near solar metallicity and then saturate, while more typical regions slowly catch up. These results are much more consistent with observational data than the simpler picture (adopted by many) of gradual, quasi-uniform increase of metallicity with time.

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