Constraints on models for chemical evolution in the solar neighborhood.
Abstract
Chemical evolution in the local region of the Galaxy is described by analytical approximations to models based on a variety of hypotheses that have been proposed to account for the observed abundances in stars, interstellar gas, and the solar system. It is found that very few types of models are consistent with several important empirical constraints. These are the paucity of metal-poor stars, the small difference between the mean metal abundances of the oldest and youngest disk stars, and the lack of observable change in certain isotopic abundance ratios during the last 4.5 billion years. Unless there is an unknown Galactic site of deuterium production, the production rates in supernovae of other light elements relative to deuterium appear to restrict the class of viable models further to those in which a significant fraction of primordial deuterium has not been processed through stars.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- September 1974
- DOI:
- 10.1086/153099
- Bibcode:
- 1974ApJ...192..629T
- Keywords:
-
- Abundance;
- Astronomical Models;
- Interstellar Gas;
- Solar System;
- Stellar Evolution;
- Chemical Composition;
- Constraints;
- Deuterium;
- Galactic Evolution;
- Interstellar Matter;
- Nuclear Fusion;
- Supernovae;
- Astrophysics