Exploring Supernova Origins: Investigating Chemically Peculiar Stars in Our Galaxy and Its Satellites Using S-PLUS

• Grant number: 24/17850-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Support Program for Fixating Young Doctors
• Start date: November 01, 2024
• End date: February 26, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Astronomy - Stellar Astrophysics
• Principal Investigator: Claudia Lucia Mendes de Oliveira
• Grantee: Hélio Dotto Perottoni
• Host Institution: Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 24/02258-0 - Exploring supernova origins: investigating chemically peculiar stars in our galaxy and its satellites using S-PLUS, AP.R

Abstract

The Universe is chemically complex, having more than 13 billion years to build the tremendous diversity observed today. All of this complexity, however, has started from roughly two very simple ingredients: hydrogen and helium. The first stars to be born in the Universe were massive and rapidly-evolving, providing the chemical seeds to form the subsequent stellar generation, dubbed as the "descendants of the first stars". This project uses Stellar Archaeology to provide observational constraints to the environmental conditions and physical processes that characterize the transition between the first and second generation stars in the early Universe. These second-generation stars are rare, accounting for less than 0.1% of the stellar content of the Galaxy, low-metallicity, low-mass, slow-evolving, and can still be observed today in the halo system of the Milky-Way. The Phase I of this project has developed a method to identify low-metallicity in the S-PLUS system filter. Phases II and III will conduct spectroscopic follow-up in medium (R < 1.500) and high (R < 30 - 40.000) resolutions, to build statistics and fully characterize the chemical abundance patterns of these objects. These, in turn, will be compared with theoretical predictions of first-star nucleosynthesis (Phase III), helping in the development of a clearer picture of the chemo-dynamical evolution of the Universe.