Heavy element synthesis in the oldest stars and the early.pdfVIP

NATURE|Vol 440 |27 April 2006|doi:10.1038/nature04807 INSIGHT REVIEW Heavy element synthesis in the oldest stars and the early Universe 1 2 John J. Cowan Christopher Sneden The first stars in the Universe were probably quite different from those born today. Composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium (plus a tiny trace of lithium), they lacked the heavier elements that determine the formation and evolution of younger stars. Although we cannot observe the very first stars — they died long ago in supernovae explosions — they created heavy elements that were incorporated into the next generation. Here we describe how observations of heavy elements in the oldest surviving stars in our Galaxy’s halo help us understand the nature of the first stars — those responsible for the chemical enrichment of our Galaxy and Universe. The Big Bang explosion at the start of the Universe was responsible for star formation in our Galaxy from the iron abundance, which astrono- the production of the light elements hydrogen and helium, along with mers refer to as ‘metallicity’. Most of the iron production that occurs some fraction of lithium. All of the other elements in nature (except today comes from type Ia supernovae. These result from the explosion beryllium and boron) are synthesized inside stars, and later ejected of white dwarfs, formed from long-lived low-mass stars; thus, the stars back into the interstellar medium where they are incorporated into that formed early in the history of the Galaxy and the Universe could not new generations of stars. Thus, the extinct first stars in our Galaxy and have had much iron. In our Galaxy these metal-poor stars are found in throughout the Universe were essentially composed of only hydrogen