2015/02/23 by V. Dobrovolskas, A. Kučinskas, P. Bonifacio +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Context (archaeology) #Emission spectrum #Forbidden mechanism #Infrared #Line (geometry) #Metallicity #Optics #Oxygen #Physics #Red giant #Red-giant branch #Spectral line #Spectrograph #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Ultraviolet #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201424885
published as A&A 576, A128 (2015) · 15 pages, 9 figures, 7 tables, including Online Material. Accepted for publication in A&A
arxiv created 2015/02/23 · openalex publication_date 2015/02/25 · arxiv updated 2015/04/22 · openalex created_date 2022/08/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Context. Although oxygen is an important tracer of Galactic chemical evolution, measurements of its abundance in the atmospheres of the oldest Galactic stars are still scarce and rather imprecise. This is mainly because only a few spectral lines are available for the abundance diagnostics. At the lowest end of the metallicity scale, oxygen can only be measured in giant stars and in most of cases such measurements rely on a single forbidden [O i] 630 nm line that is very weak and frequently blended with telluric lines. Although molecular OH lines located in the ultraviolet and infrared could also be used for the diagnostics, oxygen abundances obtained from the OH lines and the [O i] 630 nm line are usually discrepant to a level of ~ 0.3−0.4 dex.