The most metal-poor stars

IF 26.5 1区物理与天体物理 Q1 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review Pub Date : 2025-07-12 DOI:10.1007/s00159-025-00159-2

Piercarlo Bonifacio, Elisabetta Caffau, Patrick François, Monique Spite

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Abstract

The most metal-poor stars found in the Galaxy and in nearby galaxies are witnesses of the early evolution of the Universe. In a general picture in which we expect the metallicity to increase monotonically with time, as a result of the metal production in stars, we also expect the most metal-poor stars to be the most primitive objects accessible to our observations. The abundance ratios in these stars provide us important information on the first generations of stars that synthesised the nuclei that we observe in these stars. Because they are so primitive, the modelling of their chemical inventory can be often satisfactorily achieved by assuming that all the metals were produced in a single Supernova, or just a few. This is simpler than modelling the full chemical evolution, using different sources, that is necessary at higher metallicity. The price to pay for this relative ease of interpretation is that these stars are extremely rare and require specifically tailored observational strategies in order to assemble statistically significant samples of stars. In this review, we try to summarise the main observational results that have been obtained in the last ten years.

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最缺乏金属的恒星

在银河系和邻近星系中发现的最缺乏金属的恒星是宇宙早期演化的见证人。在一般情况下，由于恒星中金属的产生，我们预计金属丰度会随着时间单调地增加，我们也预计金属含量最低的恒星是我们观测到的最原始的天体。这些恒星的丰度比为我们提供了关于第一代恒星的重要信息，这些恒星合成了我们在这些恒星中观察到的原子核。因为它们是如此的原始，所以假设所有的金属都是在一颗或几颗超新星中产生的，对它们化学成分的建模通常可以令人满意地实现。这比模拟完整的化学演化要简单得多，因为在金属丰度较高的情况下，需要使用不同的来源。这种相对容易解释的代价是，这些恒星极其罕见，需要专门定制的观测策略，以便收集具有统计意义的恒星样本。在这篇综述中，我们试图总结近十年来获得的主要观测结果。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review 地学天文-天文与天体物理

CiteScore

45.00

自引率

0.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review is a journal that covers all areas of astronomy and astrophysics. It includes subjects related to other fields such as laboratory or particle physics, cosmic ray physics, studies in the solar system, astrobiology, instrumentation, and computational and statistical methods with specific astronomical applications. The frequency of review articles depends on the level of activity in different areas. The journal focuses on publishing review articles that are scientifically rigorous and easily comprehensible. These articles serve as a valuable resource for scientists, students, researchers, and lecturers who want to explore new or unfamiliar fields. The journal is abstracted and indexed in various databases including the Astrophysics Data System (ADS), BFI List, CNKI, CNPIEC, Current Contents/Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences, Dimensions, EBSCO Academic Search, EI Compendex, Japanese Science and Technology, and more.