Galactic Phylogenetics

TL;DR

This paper explores applying phylogenetic tree-building methods, commonly used in biology, to Galactic archaeology by analyzing elemental abundances in stars to trace the chemical evolution of the Galaxy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of using phylogenetic techniques in astrophysics to study Galactic history through stellar chemical data.

Findings

Galactic trees can reveal shared chemical histories of stars.

Elemental abundances serve as proxies for genetic information in stars.

Phylogenetic methods can be adapted for Galactic evolution studies.

Abstract

Phylogenetics is a widely used concept in evolutionary biology. It is the reconstruction of evolutionary history by building trees that represent branching patterns and sequences. These trees represent shared history, and it is our intention for this approach to be employed in the analysis of Galactic history. In Galactic archaeology the shared environment is the interstellar medium in which stars form and provides the basis for tree-building as a methodological tool. Using elemental abundances of solar-type stars as a proxy for DNA, we built in Jofre et al 2017 such an evolutionary tree to study the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood. In this proceeding we summarise these results and discuss future prospects.