Probing Element Abundance Changes in Galactic Stars

探测银河系恒星中元素丰度的变化

• 批准号: 1616040
• 负责人: Christopher Sneden
• 金额: $ 7.96万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1616040&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Probing; Element; Abundance; Changes; Galactic

The compositions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy hold vital clues to its birth and history of forming stars. Stars make elements in their interiors. At their deaths, stars return the new elements into the gas of the Galaxy. The investigators seek to use abundances of stars, derived from their spectra, to understand how the buildup of elements led to the complex Periodic Table of today. The investigators have three goals. Their first goal is improving the quality of chemical composition analyses. They will obtain basic laboratory data that go into the spectrum analyses. Second, they will significantly augment the number of stars studied in important groups of stars. Through this they will study members of various Galactic star populations. Thirdly, they will provide service to the research and educational communities. They will make the new lab data, and abundance analysis software freely available to all. They will also work with a group of Texas science educators to link astronomical research with their teaching efforts.The investigators will provide very accurate measurements of iron-group element abundances in many metal-poor stars of the halo of our Galaxy. They will derive abundances of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and lithium, as well as carbon isotopic ratios in large samples of about 20 open clusters of the Galactic disk. This work will uniquely take advantage of newly-acquired high resolution spectra covering broad regions of both optical and infrared spectral domains. They will search for star streams in the Galaxy by mating optical spectra with kinematics to be provided by the Gaia astrometric satellite. They will also explore this issue with new infrared spectra of warm red giant stars in clusters and in the general field of the Galactic disk. The investigators will continue to release major updates of lab atomic and molecular spectral line data, and to improve our publicly-available spectrum analysis codes.The investigators will continue their long-standing effort to improve the quality of science education in the state of Texas. They will work with a highly-motivated group of secondary science educators. They give talks on the latest astronomical research, and to engage teachers in projects that can be carried back to use in their classrooms. They will also provide opportunities for teachers to participate in telescope usage, to have workshops at McDonald Observatory, and to attend meetings of the American Astronomical Society.

我们银河系中恒星的组成为它的诞生和恒星形成历史提供了重要线索。 恒星在其内部形成元素。恒星死亡时，将新元素返回到银河系的气体中。 研究人员试图利用恒星的光谱丰度来了解元素的积累是如何导致今天复杂的周期表的。 调查人员有三个目标。他们的第一个目标是提高化学成分分析的质量。他们将获得用于光谱分析的基本实验室数据。其次，它们将大大增加重要恒星群中研究的恒星数量。 通过这个，他们将研究银河系不同星星群体的成员。第三，他们将为研究和教育界提供服务。他们将把新的实验室数据和丰度分析软件免费提供给所有人。他们还将与得克萨斯州的一组科学教育工作者合作，将天文学研究与他们的教学工作联系起来。研究人员将提供我们银河系晕中许多贫金属恒星中铁族元素丰度的非常精确的测量结果。 他们将从银河系盘的大约20个疏散星团的大样本中得出碳、氮、氧和锂的丰度，以及碳同位素比率。 这项工作将独特地利用新获得的高分辨率光谱，涵盖了光学和红外光谱域的广泛区域。 他们将通过将光学光谱与盖亚天体测量卫星提供的运动学相结合来搜索银河系中的星星流。 他们还将探索这个问题与新的红外光谱的温暖红巨星在集群和一般领域的银河系磁盘。 研究人员将继续发布实验室原子和分子光谱线数据的主要更新，并改进我们的公共可用光谱分析代码。研究人员将继续他们长期以来的努力，以提高德克萨斯州的科学教育质量。 他们将与一群积极性很高的中学科学教育工作者一起工作。 他们就最新的天文学研究发表演讲，并让教师参与可以带回课堂使用的项目。 他们还将为教师提供机会，参与望远镜的使用，在麦克唐纳天文台举办讲习班，并参加美国天文学会的会议。