Problems in the Chemical Evolution of Galaxies

Abstract

The chemical evolution of a galaxy is governed by the evolution of individual stars as well as collective processes such as star formation rate, stellar mass function and dynamics of the gas-stars system. Such a problem has been the subject of a great deal of work as reported in many up to date reviews, among which we recall Tinsley (1980), Pagel and Edmunds (1981) and Chiosi and Jones (1983), and it goes beyond the scope of this note to explore its many intricacies in detail. Therefore, instead of rewieving the recent developments achieved in this subject, we shall discuss here to some extents only a few points that in our opinion are of current interest, namely: i) the determination of chemical yields per stellar generation for various major elements; ii) the chemical history of the galactic disk; iii) the chemical evolution of magellanic and dwarf irregular galaxies. Prior to this we shall briefly review the so called simple model of galactic evolution as a useful framework to the three topics. KeywordsStar FormationMass Loss RateChemical EvolutionStellar WindStar Formation RateThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.