ARlogo Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1997. 35: 503-556
Copyright © 1997 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

Reprinted with kind permission from Annual Reviews, 4139 El Camino Way, Palo Alto, California, USA

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ABUNDANCE RATIOS AND GALACTIC CHEMICAL EVOLUTION

Andrew McWilliam

Carnegie Observatories, Room 33, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, California 91101; e-mail: andy@marmite.ociw.edu


Abstract. The metallicity of stars in the Galaxy ranges from [Fe/H] = -4 to +0.5 dex, and the solar iron abundance is epsilon(Fe) = 7.51 ± 0.01 dex. The average values of [Fe/H] in the solar neighborhood, the halo, and Galactic bulge are -0.2, -1.6, and -0.2 dex respectively.

Detailed abundance analysis reveals that the Galactic disk, halo, and bulge exhibit unique abundance patterns of O, Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti and neutron-capture elements. These signatures show that environment plays an important role in chemical evolution and that supernovae come in many flavors with a range of element yields.

The 300-fold dispersion in heavy element abundances of the most metal-poor stars suggests incomplete mixing of ejecta from individual supernova, with vastly different yields, in clouds of ~ 106 Modot.

The composition of Orion association stars indicates that star-forming regions are significantly self-enriched on time scales of 80 million years. The rapid self-enrichment and inhomogeneous chemical evolution models are required to match observed abundance trends and the dispersion in the age-metallicity relation.


Key words: abundances, chemical composition, the Galaxy, nucleosynthesis, stars


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