Aaron Dotter, Harvard-Smithsonian

Title: Galactic Archaeology, Chemical Tagging, and Stellar Evolution  (Video)

Abstract: Galactic Archaeology describes the ongoing effort to understand the formation and subsequent evolution of the Milky Way galaxy through the analysis and interpretation of (very) old stars.  I will begin with an overview of Galactic Archaeology and then describe the new technique known as "Chemical Tagging", which seeks to identify the birth clouds of stars that are distributed throughout the Galaxy via the search for unique chemical signature(s) imprinted in those clouds of gas. Finally, I will show that our knowledge of stellar evolution theory raises a very important--but previously unaddressed--problem for these pursuits, and how we can proceed in light of it.