Filtyp
Purpose: In order to study the Galactic Chemical Evolution, elemental abundances are needed. The purpose of this work is to investigate the chemical evolution of the Milky Way by determining several elemental abundances of giants in the local disk. Large surveys are up and coming, and several surveys are already working, and with these, the aim is high quality abundance measurements of several ele
Metal-poor (MP) stars in the Milky Way (the Galaxy) and its satellite galaxies open a window into the earliest times in the history of the Universe, probing the chemistry of the earliest times. Recent galaxy formation simulations predict that the oldest MP stars are those on tightly bound orbits in the inner regions of a galaxy (Tumlinson 2010). Applying this to the Milky Way, MP stars in the bulg
Nucleosynthesis is the mechanism which produces new elements in nuclear reactions. Nuclear reaction rates are highly temperature dependant, and nuclear reactions take place in very hot environments. Current theories predict that the light elements such as hydrogen and helium were produced during the Big Bang. On the other hand, the core of stars produce heavier elements through nuclear fusion. The
Stellar abundances are important for understanding the chemical evolution of galaxies and provide us with constraints on stellar evolution and supernova nucleosynthesis. To determine stellar abundances accurately, atomic data is crucial. This data is incomplete for many elements, especially in the infrared region. In particular, hyperfine structure (hfs) data in the near-infrared region is lacking
Context. Large scale chemical abundance gradients in the Galactic disks, small-scale abundance structures, and the mean chemical abundance values in the Solar vicinity, are important constraints to Galactic chemo-dynamical formation and evolution models. The formation and evolution of stars, and interstellar gas and dust depends on the distribution and evolution of matter in the Galaxy. Therefore,
Gravitational encounters between a single star and a binary system can frequently occur in the cores of dense stellar systems like globular clusters. These three-body scattering encounters can lead to a variety of outcomes since the energy of the binary components can be exchanged with the interacting single star. The outcome of these interactions strongly depend on the initial conditions of the i
Protoplanetary discs surround young stars for the first few million years after their formation and they are the birthplaces of planetary systems. The thermal structure of the discs is regulated by their dust content and the opacity that it provides. The aim of this project is to investigate the effect grain growth has on the structure of the protoplanetary discs. Hydrodynamical simulations have b
This is a bachelor thesis bent on introducing the field of exoplanet research. It primarily includes descriptions of the various detection methods, with some detail into how the methods yield parameter estimates by means of least-squares algorithms. The feasibility of combining state-of-the-art astrometric capabilities of Gaia and radial velocity measurements from ground level is briefly discussed
Imaging of stellar surfaces in visible wavelengths is one of the current frontiers in astronomy. With a few exceptions, stars can not be seen in visible light as anything but point objects with current technology. Being able to properly image stars would open up the door to a vast field of new discoveries, permitting direct studies of phenomena such as rotationally deformed stars, circumstellar di
Researchers in the field of Galactic Archaeology have entered the era of industrial revolution. Upcoming surveys are planning on observing tens of millions of stars and high precision and accuracy must be ensured when deriving their stellar parameters and elemental abundances. Unconventional data-driven techniques hold the promise of efficiently dealing with these vast collections of data while st
Context. The discovery of hot Jupiters, giant gas exoplanets on tight orbits close to their host star, has proven instrumental in the study of exoplanet atmospheres through transit spectroscopy. Just as a temperature increase with height manifests in Earth’s atmosphere due to ozone absorbing ultraviolet radiation, transit spectra of some hot Jupiters has yielded evidence that suggests the presence
Context. With the goal to accurately map about a billion of the Milky Way stars, the astrometric satellite Gaia was launched in December 2013. Its high precision and sensitivity will lead to better understanding of the Galactic structure and evolution. Also, it will be possible to probe the matter distribution in the Galaxy. Aims. To study how well the Galactic matter distribution can be determin
Context. Intensity interferometry was invented and used by R.Hanbury Brown and R.Q.Twiss in the 1960's to measure stellar angular diameters. Its main advantage over conventional interferometry is that it enables very long baselines and is insensitive to poor seeing. However, because it requires very large light collectors, it was never pursued further. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a
In this thesis, I present a case where Dark Matter subhalos would annihilate at some stage in their lifetime. The implication of this scenario could potentially aid the Missing Satellites and the Cusp-Core density profile problem. The Dark Matter particles’ annihilation process and effective “friction” lead to an energy and momentum loss into radiation and hence to the destabilization of the Dark
Context: Data from the recently launched astrometric satellite Gaia will be coming in soon with the final data release expected in 2022. This will provide a very precise map of the Galaxy. The Solar system and Galaxy is thought to be filled with invisible bodies (planetesimals, planets, brown dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, etc.) and they will affect the observations via gravitational lensing.
