At a glance

Nucleosynthesis and Chemical Evolution of Galaxies

• Bernard E. J. Pagel

Cambridge University Press: 1997. Pp.378 £19.95, $29.95, (pbk); £55, $74.95 (hbk)

Take 10¹¹ solar masses of gas with almost primordial composition, add many generations of stars formed at a suitable rate, let the elements be synthesized inside the stars, add some heavy elements in ejecta from dying stars, and stir the ejecta with the surrounding medium over a low heat for 10¹⁰ years. The result should be the pattern of elemental abundances observed in our own Galaxy and external galaxies. Surprisingly, the cosmic soup tastes the same (with a few exceptions) almost everwhere. Why?

This subject is addressed by Bernard Pagel as he guides the reader magisterially through the secrets of measuring elemental abundances and producing the first light elements by cosmological nucleosynthesis, and later all the others by stellar processing (primary and secondary elements, hydrostatic and explosive phases, in single and binary stars and through neutron-capture synthesis). He also discusses the concepts of galactic chemical evolution and its theoretical modelling in steps of different complexity, and finally the comparison of the observational data with the theoretical results for galaxies of different morphological type and star-formation history. Each topic is explained from the ground up, giving the reader all the information needed to proceed further. The book manages to present (without losing scientific rigour) one of the most fascinating subjects of modern astrophysics.