Abundance Studies of Open Clusters: Implications for Stellar and Galactic Astrophysics

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Deliyannis, Constantine AST 98-12735 Dr. Deliyannis will carry out a program of observations of open star clusters that will address a number of issues in stellar and chemical evolution, by tracing the behavior of the stellar lithium abundance. Observations will be made with the Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO telescope using its multi-object spectrograph which can provide large samples of stars within each cluster. A sample of up to 10 clusters, selected to span the relevant parameter space in age and metallicity, will allow the investigation of : a) mechanisms for Li depletion in main-sequence stars, b) tests of theoretical explanations for the behavior of Lithium abundance with temperature, and c) the galactic evolution of Lithium and its relation to 'primordial' Li abundance. The research plan focuses on using the behavior of Lithium abundance in unevolved stars as probes of stellar structure and evolution, but the results would have implications for the determination of globular cluster ages, big bang nucleosynthesis, and cosmology.