To be published in "Vulcano Workshop: Chemical Enrichment of Intracluster and Intergalactic Medium", May 14 - 18 2001, eds. F. Matteucci and F. Giovannelli, ASP Conference Series;
astro-ph/0107215

For a postscript version of the article, click here.


METALS IN THE UNIVERSE AND DIFFUSE BACKGROUND RADIATION

B.E.J. Pagel

Astronomy Centre, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QJ, UK


Abstract. An attempt is made to guess the overall cosmic abundance of "metals" and the contribution made by the energy released in their production to the total intensity of extragalactic background light (EBL). With a comparable or somewhat larger amount coming from white dwarfs, and a probably quite modest contribution from AGNs, one can fairly easily account for the lower end of the range of existing estimates for the total EBL intensity (50 to 60 nwt m-2 sterad-1), but it seems more difficult should some higher estimates (90 to 100 in the same units) prove to be correct.


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