Spectroscopic Investigations of the Chemistry of the Galaxy

我们银河系晕区的“金属贫乏”恒星比任何已知的恒星都更能反映出宇宙历史早期创造的物质的化学丰度历史。利用麦克唐纳天文台的一个新的阶梯ccd（电荷耦合器探测器），首席研究员（PI）计划一个为期两年的项目，将完成对晕星中“重中子捕获”丰度（元素周期表中的Ba到Yb元素）的调查，这项研究得到了早期NSF奖给他的支持。然后，他将对所有可探测到的“极贫金属”恒星的丰度进行调查。这个项目利用了最近探测器的发展，使得PI能够调查晕中越来越暗的恒星，从而将我们对银河系化学历史的了解推回到第一代恒星，这些恒星可能形成于大爆炸后的10亿年内。

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.