Spectroscopic Investigations of the Chemistry of the Galaxy

银河系晕晕区的“贫金属”恒星比已知的任何其他恒星更能反映出宇宙历史早期所产生的物质的化学丰富史。利用麦克唐纳天文台的新梯形电荷耦合器件探测器，首席研究人员(PI)计划进行一个为期两年的计划，完成对晕星中“重中子俘获”丰度(元素周期表中的Ba到Yb元素)的调查，这项调查得到了美国国家科学基金会早些时候授予他的奖项的支持。然后，他将对所有可到达的“超金属贫星”的丰度进行调查。这个项目利用了最近探测器的发展，使PI能够探测光晕中越来越暗的恒星，从而将我们对银河系化学史的知识推回到第一代恒星，可能是在大爆炸之后的10亿年内形成的。

The "metal poor" stars in the halo region of our Milky Way Galaxy reflect more closely than any known others the chemical abundance history of matter created at early epochs in the history of the Universe. Using a new echelle-CCD (Charged Coupled Device detector) at McDonald Observatory, the Principal Investigator (PI) plans a two-year program that will complete a survey of "heavy neutron capture" abundances (elements Ba through Yb in the periodic table) among halo stars which was supported by an earlier NSF award to him. He will then undertake a survey of the abundances of all accessible "ultrametal poor" stars. This program exploits the recent detector developments which have permitted the PI to survey fainter and fainter stars in the halo and thereby push our knowledge of the Galaxy's chemical history back to the first generation of stars, formed perhaps within a billion years of the Big Bang.