L. Monaco

VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV): The public ESO near-IR variability survey of the Milky Way

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13841076 Copyright Elsevier B.V.

An extremely primitive star in the Galactic halo

The early Universe had a chemical composition consisting of hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium; almost all other elements were subsequently created in stars and supernovae. The mass fraction of elements more massive than helium, Z, is known as ‘metallicity’. A number of very metal-poor stars has been found, some of which have a low iron abundance but are rich in carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. For theoretical reasons and because of an observed absence of stars with Z < 1.5 × 10−5, it has been suggested that low-mass stars cannot form from the primitive interstellar medium until it has been enriched above a critical value of Z, estimated to lie in the range 1.5 × 10−8 to 1.5 × 10−6 (ref. 8), although competing theories claiming the contrary do exist. (We use ‘low-mass’ here to mean a stellar mass of less than 0.8 solar masses, the stars that survive to the present day.) Here we report the chemical composition of a star in the Galactic halo with a very low Z (≤ 6.9 × 10−7, which is 4.5 × 10−5 times that of the Sun) and a chemical pattern typical of classical extremely metal-poor stars—that is, without enrichment of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. This shows that low-mass stars can be formed at very low metallicity, that is, below the critical value of Z. Lithium is not detected, suggesting a low-metallicity extension of the previously observed trend in lithium depletion. Such lithium depletion implies that the stellar material must have experienced temperatures above two million kelvin in its history, given that this is necessary to destroy lithium.

The exotic chemical composition of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy

Context. The Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy is the nearest neighbor of the Milky Way. Moving along a short period quasi-polar orbit within the Halo, it is being destroyed by the tidal interaction with our Galaxy, losing its stellar content along a huge stellar stream. Aims. We study the detailed chemical composition of 12 giant stars in the Sagittarius dwarf Spheroidal main body, together with 5 more in the associated globular cluster Terzan 7, by means of high resolution VLT-UVES spectra. Methods. Abundances are derived for up to 21 elements from O to Nd, by fitting lines EW or line profiles against ATLAS 9 model atmospheres and SYNTHE spectral syntheses calculated ad-hoc. Temperatures are derived from

The nucleus of the Sagittarius dSph galaxy and M54: a window on the process of galaxy nucleation

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A primordial star in the heart of the Lion

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TOPoS - II. On the bimodality of carbon abundance in CEMP stars Implications on the early chemical evolution of galaxies

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Kinematics and chemistry of recently discovered reticulum 2 and horologium 1 dwarf galaxies

colors and gravities from

Lithium and sodium in the globular cluster M4 Detection of a Li-rich dwarf star: preservation or pollution? ,

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Lithium-rich giants in the Galactic thick disk

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New insights on Ba overabundance in open clusters. Evidence for the intermediate neutron-capture process at play?

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