Chemical Evolution of Galaxies
The term “chemical evolution of galaxies” refers to the evolution of abundances of chemical species in galaxies, which is due to nuclear processes occurring in stars and to gas flows into and out of galaxies. This book deals with the chemical evolution of
- PDF / 9,173,480 Bytes
- 237 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 86 Downloads / 203 Views
G. B¨orner, Garching, Germany A. Burkert, M¨unchen, Germany W. B. Burton, Charlottesville, VA, USA and Leiden, The Netherlands A. Coustenis, Meudon, France M. A. Dopita, Canberra, Australia B. Leibundgut, Garching, Germany A. Maeder, Sauverny, Switzerland P. Schneider, Bonn, Germany V. Trimble, College Park, MD, and Irvine, CA, USA
For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/848
•
Francesca Matteucci
Chemical Evolution of Galaxies
123
Francesca Matteucci Universit`a di Trieste Dipto. Fisica Via G.B. Tiepolo 11 34131 Trieste Italy [email protected]
ISSN 0941-7834 ISBN 978-3-642-22490-4 e-ISBN 978-3-642-22491-1 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-22491-1 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011942161 c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover figure: Galaxies of different morphological type Credit: Australian Astronomical Observatory/David Malin Images Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
To the most important women of my life: Maria Francesca and Raffaella
•
Preface
This book deals with the chemical evolution of galaxies. The term chemical evolution is immediately associated with Beatrice Tinsley, who greatly contributed to this important astrophysical field. Simultaneously with R.J.Jr. Talbot and D.W. Arnett, she developed a formalism that allowed us to explore galaxy evolution from the point of view of element production and distribution inside and outside galaxies. During the Big Bang, only light elements (H, D, He, and Li) were produced and all the heavier ones (from carbon to the heaviest) originated in stars. The history of star formation is one of the main drivers of chemical evolution since the number of stars formed (the star formation rate) and the distribution of stars as a function of their mass (the initial mass function) are regulating the rate of chemical enrichment at any cosmic time. Then, the stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis provides us with fundamental information about element production and their restoration into the interstellar medium. As time passes, more and more stellar generations succeed one another and the new ones form o
Data Loading...
