The Galactic Evolution of Boron

Abstract

Boron, together with lithium and beryllium, belongs to the group of the so-called light elements, the importance of which ranges from providing important tests to Big Bang nucleosynthesis scenarios to being useful probes of stellar interiors and useful tools to further constrain the chemical evolution of the Galaxy.Since it became operative in the late eighties, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and its high- and medium-resolution spectrographs have played a key role in analyzing boron. Boron has now been observed in several stars and in the interstellar medium (ISM), providing important information in different fields of astrophysical research (nucleosynthesis, cosmic-ray spallation, stellar structure). In particular, determinations of boron in unevolved stars of different metallicity have allowed to study how boron evolves with iron.After a general review of the current status of boron observations and of the major uncertainties affecting the measurements of its abundance, I will mainly concentrate on unevolved stars and discuss the ‘evolutionary’ picture emerging from the most recent analyses and how its interpretation compares with theoretical expectations. A brief discussion on future prospects will conclude this contribution, showing how the field may evolve and improve.