Metallicities and Nucleosynthesis Patterns in Early Generation Halo Stars

Details Metallicities and Nucleosynthesis Patterns in Early Generation Halo Stars Metallicities and Nucleosynthesis Patterns in Early Generation Halo Stars

May 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aas...204.3404b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society Meeting 204, #34.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.703

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

I review our present knowledge of the Metallicity Distribution Function of stars in the low-metallicity tail of the halo population of the Galaxy, and the variety of observed elemental signatures that might be associated with particular astrophysical origins in the early Universe. Such signatures include stars that exhibit (a) highly and mildly enhanced r-process element ratios, as compared to the solar ratios, (b) highly s-process enriched stars, (c) stars showing large enrichments of both the r- and and s-process elements, and (d) stars that are greatly enhanced in the light element species, such as CNO, and (in some cases) the alpha elements.
Because the stars in which these characteristics are observed all have metallicity [Fe/H] ≤ -2.5, they are inferred to have formed no more than 0.5-1 Gyrs after the Big Bang, prior to the final assemblage of the Milky Way. As such, they provide our best available probes of the nature of early element producers, such as Type II SN and hypernovae, as well as binaries that included (now deceased) stars of intermediate (1.5 - 3 Mo) masses.
I outline ongoing and future plans for dramatically accelerating the pace of discovery of these rare, but clearly important, objects.
Partial support for this work has been received from NSF grants AST 00-98508 and AST 00-98549, and from JINA, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, an NSF Physics Frontier Center.

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