From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars
Understanding the origin of the elements has been a decades-long pursuit, with many open questions remaining. Old stars found in the Milky Way and its dwarf satellite galaxies can provide answers because they preserve clean element abundance patterns of the nucleosynthesis processes that operated so...
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| Format: | Article |
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Annual Reviews
2019
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121241 |
| _version_ | 1811073242656407552 |
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| author | Frebel, Anna L. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics Frebel, Anna L. |
| author_sort | Frebel, Anna L. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Understanding the origin of the elements has been a decades-long pursuit, with many open questions remaining. Old stars found in the Milky Way and its dwarf satellite galaxies can provide answers because they preserve clean element abundance patterns of the nucleosynthesis processes that operated some 13 billion years ago, enabling reconstruction of the chemical evolution of the elements. This review focuses on the astrophysical signatures of heavy neutron-capture elements made in the s-, i-, and r-processes found in old stars. A highlight is the recently discovered r-process galaxy Reticulum II, which was enriched by a neutron star merger. These results show that old stars in dwarf galaxies provide a novel means to constrain the astrophysical site of the r-process, ushering in much-needed progress on this major outstanding question. This nuclear astrophysics research complements the many experimental and theoretical nuclear physics efforts into heavy-element formation, and also aligns with results on the gravitational-wave signature of neutron star mergers. Keywords: Milky Way Galaxy; stellar chemical abundances; metal-poor stars; dwarf galaxies; nucleosynthesis; early Universe |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:30:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/121241 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:30:29Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Annual Reviews |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1212412020-12-12T02:15:38Z From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars Frebel, Anna L. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research Understanding the origin of the elements has been a decades-long pursuit, with many open questions remaining. Old stars found in the Milky Way and its dwarf satellite galaxies can provide answers because they preserve clean element abundance patterns of the nucleosynthesis processes that operated some 13 billion years ago, enabling reconstruction of the chemical evolution of the elements. This review focuses on the astrophysical signatures of heavy neutron-capture elements made in the s-, i-, and r-processes found in old stars. A highlight is the recently discovered r-process galaxy Reticulum II, which was enriched by a neutron star merger. These results show that old stars in dwarf galaxies provide a novel means to constrain the astrophysical site of the r-process, ushering in much-needed progress on this major outstanding question. This nuclear astrophysics research complements the many experimental and theoretical nuclear physics efforts into heavy-element formation, and also aligns with results on the gravitational-wave signature of neutron star mergers. Keywords: Milky Way Galaxy; stellar chemical abundances; metal-poor stars; dwarf galaxies; nucleosynthesis; early Universe 2019-06-10T19:51:14Z 2019-06-10T19:51:14Z 2019-03-22T14:30:51Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0163-8998 1545-4134 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121241 Frebel, Anna. “From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars.” Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 68, 1 (October 2018): 237–269 © Annual Reviews http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV-NUCL-101917-021141 Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Annual Reviews arXiv |
| spellingShingle | Frebel, Anna L. From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars |
| title | From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars |
| title_full | From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars |
| title_fullStr | From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars |
| title_full_unstemmed | From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars |
| title_short | From Nuclei to the Cosmos: Tracing Heavy-Element Production with the Oldest Stars |
| title_sort | from nuclei to the cosmos tracing heavy element production with the oldest stars |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121241 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT frebelannal fromnucleitothecosmostracingheavyelementproductionwiththeoldeststars |