U.S.-Australia Cooperative Science Program: Discovery and Analysis of Extremely Low Metallicity Stars in the Galactic Halo

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9417547 Beers This award will partially support the travel expenses, over a three year period, for Dr. Timothy Beers and one of his graduate students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University, to enable them to each made one visit to conduct cooperative research with Dr. John E. Norris of the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories and Dr. Sean Ryan of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Epping, Australia. The collaborative research will focus on the discovery and analysis of extremely low metallicity in the Galactic Halo. Large numbers of extremely metal-deficient stars provide crucial information on questions in cosmology, the formation and evolution of the Galaxy, and the production and processing of light elements in stars. Observations of low-metallicity candidates through the southern hemisphere sky, made possible through this collaboration, will provide a significant increase in the numbers of stars with metal abundances less than 1/1000th of the solar value, thereby enabling a wide range of investigations concerning the formation and evolution of our Galaxy, and the Universe. Specific investigations include a detailed comparison of the metallicity distribution function of extremely metal-poor stars with predictions of Galactic enrichment models, a study of the kinematics of metal-deficient stars as a function of abundance and distance from the Galactic plane, and high-resolution observations of the relative abundances of the light and heavy elements in stars, which in turn place fundamental constraints on stellar evolution and on nucleosynthesis processes in the early Universe. In addition to the access this award will provide to the Australian astronomers with mutual interests, the project will result in additional viewing opportunities using Australian facilities to survey the southern hemisphere sky.