THE EVOLUTION OF A SPIRAL GALAXY: THE GALAXY

  • Lee, See-Woo (Department of Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Park, Byeong-Gon (Department of Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Kang, Yong-Hee (Department of Earth Science Education, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Ann, Hong-Bae (Department of Earth Science Education, Pusan National University)
  • Published : 1991.06.30

Abstract

The evolution of the Galaxy is examined by the halo-disk model, using the time-dependent bimodal IMF and contraints such as cumulative metallicity distribution, differential metallicity distribution and PDMF of main sequence stars. The time scale of the Galactic halo formation is about 3Gyr during which the most of halo stars and metal abundance are formed and ${\sim}95%$ of the initial halo mass falls to the disk. The G-dwarf problem could be explained by the time-dependent bimodal IMF which is suppressed for low mass stars at the early phase (t < 1Gyr) of the disk evolution. However, the importance of this problem is much weakened by the Pagel's differential metallicity distribution which leads to less initial metal enrichment and many long-lived metal-poor stars with Z < $1/3Z_{\odot}$ The observational distribution of abundance ratios of C, N, O elements with respect to [Fe/H] could be reproduced by the halo-disk model, including the contribution of iron product by SNIs of intermediate mass stars. The initial enrichment of elements in the disk could be explained by the halo-disk model, resulting in the slight decrease and then the increase in the slopes of the [N/Fe]- and [C/Fe]-distributions with increasing [Fe/H] in the range of [Fe/H] < -1.

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