The Arcturus moving group is a well-populated example of phase space substructure within the disk of our Galaxy. With its large rotational lag (V = −100 kms−1), metal poor nature ([Fe/H] ~ −0.6) and significant age (10 Gyr) it belongs to the Galaxy's thick disk. Traditionally regarded as the remains of a dissolved open cluster, it has recently been suggested to be a remnant of a satellite accreted by our Galaxy.

We confirm via further kinematic studies using the Nordstöm et al. (2004), Schuster et al. (2004) and RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) surveys (Steinmetz et al. 2004) the existence of the group, finding it to possibly favour negative U velocities and also possibly a solar-circle phenomenon. We undertook a high-resolution spectroscopic abundance study of Arcturus group members and candidates to investigate the origin of the group. Examining abundance of Fe, Mg, Ca, Ti, Cr, Ni, Zn, Ce, Nd, Sm and Gd for 134 stars we found that the group is chemically similar to disk stars and does not exhibit a clear chemical homogeneity.

The origin of the group still remains unresolved: the chemical results are consistent with a dynamical origin but do not entirely rule out a merger one. Certainly, the Arcturus group provides a challenge to our understanding of the nature and origin of the Galaxy's thick disk.

The mass reinserted by young stars of an emerging massive compact cluster shows a bimodal hydrodynamic behaviour. In the inner part of the cluster, it is thermally unstable, while in its outer parts it forms an out-blowing wind. The chemical homogeneity/inhomogeneity of low/high mass clusters demonstrates the relevance of this solution to the presence of single/multiple stellar populations. We show the consequences that the thermal instability of the reinserted mass has to the galactic super-winds.

The metallicity distribution and abundance ratios of the Galactic bulge are reviewed. Issues raised by different groups in recent work, in particular the high metallicity end, a comparison between the oxygen abundances derived from different indicators, the [OI] 630nm and IR OH lines, and the issue of measuring giants vs. dwarfs, are discussed. Finally, abundances in bulge globular clusters are briefly described.

Constraints on the chemical yields of the first stars and supernova can be derived by examining the abundance patterns of different types of metal-poor stars. We show how metal-poor stars are employed to derive constraints of the formation of the first low-mass stars by testing a fine-structure line cooling theory. The concept of stellar archaeology, that stellar abundances truly reflect the chemical composition of the earliest times, is then addressed. The accretion history of a sample of metal-poor stars is examined in detail in a cosmological context, and found to have no impact on the observed abundances. Predictions are made for the lowest possible Fe and Mg abundances observable in the Galaxy, [Fe/H]min = −7.5 and [Mg/H]min = −5.5. The absence of stars below these values is so far consistent with a top-heavy IMF. These predictions are directly relevant for future surveys and the next generation of telescopes.

The formation of the first galaxies at redshifts z ~ 10−15 signaled the transition from the simple initial state of the universe to one of ever increasing complexity. We here review recent progress in understanding their assembly process with numerical simulations, starting with cosmological initial conditions and modelling the detailed physics of star formation. In this context we emphasize the importance and influence of selecting appropriate initial conditions for the star formation process. We revisit the notion of a critical metallicity resulting in the transition from primordial to present-day initial mass functions and highlight its dependence on additional cooling mechanisms and the exact initial conditions. We also review recent work on the ability of dust cooling to provide the transition to present-day low-mass star formation. In particular, we highlight the extreme conditions under which this transition mechanism occurs, with violent fragmentation in dense gas resulting in tightly packed clusters.

Metal-free stars are assumed to evolve at constant mass because of the very low stellar winds. This leads to large CO-core mass at the end of the evolution, so primordial stars with an initial mass between 25 and 85 M⊙ are expected to end as direct black holes, the explosion energy being too weak to remove the full envelope.

We show that when rotation enters into play, some mass is lost because the stars are prone to reach the critical velocity during the main sequence evolution. Contrary to what happens in the case of very low- but non zero-metallicity stars, the enrichment of the envelope by rotational mixing is very small and the total mass lost remains modest. The compactness of the primordial stars lead to a very inefficient transport of the angular momentum inside the star, so the profile of Ω(r) is close to Ωr2 = const. As the core contracts, the rotation rate increases, and the star ends its life with a fast spinning core. Such a configuration has been shown to modify substantially the dynamics of the explosion. Where one expected a weak explosion or none at all, rotation might boost the explosion energy and drive a robust supernova. This will have important consequences in the way primordial stars enriched the early Universe.

I review the present understanding of the process by which the universe has been enriched in the course of its history with heavy elements produced by stars and transported into the surrounding intergalactic medium. This process goes under the name of “cosmic metal enrichment” and presents some of the most challenging puzzles in present day physical cosmology. These are reviewed along with some proposed explanations that all together form a coherent working scenario.

We examine mass–metallicity relations for nearby (D < 2 Mpc) gas-rich and gas-poor dwarf galaxies. We derived stellar and baryonic masses using photometric data and used average stellar iron abundances as the metallicity indicator. With the inclusion of available data for massive galaxies, we find a continuous mass–metallicity relation for galaxies spanning nine orders of magnitude in mass, and that the mass–metallicity relations are the same for both gas-rich and gas-poor dwarf galaxies. We derive stellar effective yields from the stellar abundances, finding that gas-poor dwarf galaxies form a single sequence with mass, whereas gas-rich dwarf galaxies have higher yields at comparable mass. Simple chemical evolution models show that a mass-dependent star-formation efficiency can simultaneously account for the correlations between metallicity, gas fraction, and stellar effective yield with mass. In agreement with recent and independent results, we conclude that a key driver of the mass-metallicity relation is the variation of star-formation efficiency with galaxy mass, modulated by galaxy mass-dependent outflows and/or stellar IMF variations, and coupled with environmental gas-removal processes.

Extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars are thought to be formed in the low-mass protogalaxies as building blocks of the Milky Way and can be probes to investigate the early stage of galaxy formation and star formation in the early universe. We study the formation history of EMP stars in the Milky Way halo using a new model of chemical evolution based on the hierarchical theory of the galaxy formation. We construct the merging history of the Milky Way halo based on the extended Press-Schechter formalism, and follow the star formation and chemical evolution along the merger tree. The abundance trends and number of low-mass stars predicted in our model are compared with those of observed EMP stars. Additionally, in order to clarify the origin of hyper metal poor stars, we investigate the change of the surface metal abundances of stars by accretion of interstellar matter. We also investigate the pre-enrichment of intergalactic matter by the first supernovae.

The ubiquitous presence of globular clusters around massive galaxies today suggests that these extreme star clusters must have been formed prolifically in the earlier universe in low-metallicity galaxies. Numerous adolescent and massive star clusters are already known to be present in a variety of galaxies in the local universe; however most of these systems have metallicities of 12 + log(O/H) > 8, and are thus not representative of the galaxies in which today's ancient globular clusters were formed. In order to better understand the formation and evolution of these massive clusters in environments with few heavy elements, we have targeted several low-metallicity dwarf galaxies with radio observations, searching for newly-formed massive star clusters still embedded in their birth material. The galaxies in this initial study are HS 0822+3542, UGC 4483, Pox 186, and SBS 0335-052, all of which have metallicities of 12 + log(O/H) < 7.75. While no thermal radio sources, indicative of natal massive star clusters, are found in three of the four galaxies, SBS 0335-052 hosts two such objects, which are incredibly luminous. The radio spectral energy distributions of these intense star-forming regions in SBS 0335-052 suggest the presence of ~12,000 equivalent O-type stars, and the implied star formation rate is nearing the maximum starburst intensity limit.

We discuss the four basic methods to derive HII region abundances in metal-poor galaxies by presenting a few recent results obtained with these methods. We end up by commenting on the yet unsolved problem of temperature fluctuations in HII regions, which may plague abundance determinations, as well as the discrepancy between abundances derived from recombination lines and collisionally excited lines, to which inhomogeneous chemical composition might be the explanation.

Star formation is enhanced in spiral arms because of a combination of orbit crowding, cloud collisions, and gravitational instabilities. The characteristic mass for the instability is 107M⊙ in gas and 105M⊙ in stars, and the morphology is the familiar beads on a string with 1-2 kpc separation. Similar instabilities occur in resonance rings and tidal tails. Sequential triggering from stellar pressure occurs in two ways. For short times and near distances, it occurs in the bright rims and dense knots that lag behind during cloud dispersal. For long times, it occurs in swept-up shells and along the periphery of cleared regions. The first case should be common but difficult to disentangle from independent star formation in the same cloud. The second case has a causality condition and a collapse condition and is often easy to recognize. Turbulent triggering produces a hierarchy of dense cloudy structure and an associated hierarchy of young star positions. There should also be a correlation between the duration of star formation and the size of the region that is analogous to the size-linewidth relation in the gas. The cosmological context is provided by observations of star formation in high redshift galaxies. Sequential and turbulent triggering is not yet observable, but gravitational instabilities are, and they show a scale up from local instabilities by a factor of ~3 in size and ~100 in mass. This is most easily explained as the result of an increase in the ISM turbulent speed by a factor of ~5. In the clumpiest galaxies at high redshift, the clumps are so large that they should interact with each other and merge in the center, where they form or contribute to the bulge.

I report on observations of the z=t 0.01 dwarf galaxy SBS1543+593 which is projected onto the background QSO HS1543+5921. As a star-forming galaxy first noted in emission, this dwarf is playing a pivotal role in our understanding of high-redshift galaxy populations, because it also gives rise to a Damped Lyman Alpha system. This enabled us to analyze, for the first time, the chemical abundance of α elements in a Damped Lyman Alpha galaxy using both, emission and absorption diagnostics. We find that the abundances agree with one another within the observational uncertainties. I discuss the implications of this result for the interpretation of high-redshift galaxy observations. A catalog of dwarf-galaxy–QSO projections culled from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is provided to stimulate future work.

The long term goal of large-scale chemical tagging is to use stellar elemental abundances as a tracer of dispersed substructures of the Galactic disk. The identification of such lost stellar aggregates and exploring their chemical properties will be key in understanding the formation and evolution of the disk. Present day stellar structures such as open clusters and moving groups are the ideal testing grounds for the viability of chemical tagging, as they are believed to be the remnants of the original larger star-forming aggregates. We examine recent high resolution abundance studies of open clusters to explore the various abundance trends and reassess the prospects of large-scale chemical tagging.

The past history and origin of the different Galactic stellar populations are manifested in their different chemical abundance patterns. We obtained new elemental abundances for 553 F and G dwarf stars, to more accurately quantify these patterns for the thin and thick disks. However, the exact definition of disk membership is not straightforward. Stars that have a high likelihood of belonging to the thin disk show different abundance patterns from those for the thick disk. In contrast, we show that stars for the Hercules Stream do not show unique abundance patterns, but rather follow those of the thin and thick disks. This strongly suggests that the Hercules Stream is a feature induced by internal dynamics within the Galaxy rather than the remnant of an accreted satellite.

Studying the disk of the Milky Way in its cosmological context, as reflected in the title of this conference, was pioneered by Bengt Strömgren, in whose honour we are gathered here. A significant legacy of his is the understanding that advances are achieved by making connections among fields that are tenuously related on initial inspection. When the tools to achieve this were not available, Bengt Strömgren developed the necessary techniques, such as Strömgren photometry to quantify the local stellar population.

We study the formation of primordial proto-stars in a ΛCDM universe using ultra high-resolution cosmological simulations. Our approach includes all the relevant atomic and molecular physics to follow the thermal evolution of a prestellar gas cloud to “stellar” densities. We describe the numerical implementation of the physics. We also show the result of a simulation of the formation of primordial stars in a reionized gas.

We derive the chemical composition of the neutral gas in the blue compact dwarf (BCD) Pox 36 observed with FUSE. Metals (N, O, Ar, and Fe) are underabundant as compared to the ionized gas associated with H ii regions by a factor ~7. The neutral gas, although it is not pristine, is thus probably less chemically evolved than the ionized gas. This could be due to different dispersal and mixing timescales. Results are compared to those of other BCDs observed with FUSE. The metallicity of the neutral gas in BCDs seems to reach a lower threshold of ~1/50 Z⊙ for extremely-metal poor galaxies.

We present three dimensional hydrodynamical simulations aimed at studying the dynamical and chemical evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM) in isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs). This evolution is driven by the explosion of Type II and Type Ia supernovae, whose different contribution on both the dynamics and chemical enrichment is taken into account. Radiative losses are effective in radiating away the huge amount of energy released by SNe explosions, and the dSph is able to retain most of the gas allowing a long period (≥ 2 − 3 Gyr) of star formation, as usually observed in this kind of galaxies. We are able to reproduce the stellar metallicity distribution function (MDF) as well as the peculiar chemical properties of strongly O-depleted stars observed in several dSphs. The model also naturally predicts two different stellar populations, with an anti-correlation between [Fe/H] and velocity dispersion, similarly to what observed in the Sculptor and Fornax dSphs. These results derive from the inhomogeneous pollution of the SNe Ia, a distinctive characteristic of our model. We also applied the model to the peculiar globular cluster (GC) ω Cen in the hypothesis that it is the remnant of a formerly larger stellar system, possibly a dSph.

The formation and evolution of the Milky Way bulge can be constrained by studying elemental abundances of bulge stars. Due to the large and variable visual extinction in the line-of-sight towards the bulge, an analysis in the near-IR is preferred. Here, I will present some preliminary results of an on-going project in which elemental abundances, especially those of the C, N, and O elements, of bulge stars are investigated by analysing CRIRES spectra observed with the VLT.