The chemical evolution of the Milky Way

TL;DR

This paper reviews models of the Milky Way's chemical evolution, emphasizing stellar nucleosynthesis, chemical abundances, and comparison with observations to understand our galaxy's formation history.

Contribution

It introduces detailed models incorporating stellar nucleosynthesis to simulate the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, comparing theoretical predictions with observational data.

Findings

Models successfully reproduce observed chemical abundance patterns.

Stellar nucleosynthesis is crucial for understanding galactic chemical evolution.

Comparison with observations constrains galaxy formation scenarios.

Abstract

We will discuss some highlights concerning the chemical evolution of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. First we will describe the main ingredients necessary to build a model for the chemical evolution of the Milky Way. Then we will illustrate some Milky Way models which includes detailed stellar nucleosynthesis and compute the evolution of a large number of chemical elements, including C, N, O, $\alpha$-elements, Fe and heavier. The main observables and in particular the chemical abundances in stars and gas will be considered. A comparison theory-observations will follow and finally some conclusions from this astroarchaeological approach will be derived.