Galactic Cosmochronometry from Radioactive Elements in the Spectra of Very Old Metal-Poor Stars

Abstract

In a short review of neutron-capture elemental abundances in Galactic halo stars, emphasis is placed on the use of these elements to estimate the age of the Galactic halo. Two prominent characteristics of neutron-capture elements in halo stars are their large star-to-star scatter in the overall abundance level with respect to lighter elements, and the dominance of r-process abundance patterns at lowest stellar metallicities. The r-process abundance signature potentially allows the direct determination of the age of the earliest Galactic halo nucleosynthesis events, but further developments in r-process theory, high resolution spectroscopy of very metal-poor stars, and in basic atomic data are needed to narrow the uncertainties in age estimates. Attention is brought to the importance of accurate transition probabilities in neutron-capture element cosmochronometry. Recent progress in the transition probabilities of rare earth elements is discussed, along with suggestions for future work on other species.