Bibcode
Israelian, G.; Ecuvillon, A.; Rebolo, R.; García-López, R.; Bonifacio, P.; Molaro, P.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.421, p.649-658 (2004)
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7
2004
Journal
Citations
109
Refereed citations
83
Description
We present detailed spectroscopic analysis of nitrogen abundances in 31
unevolved metal-poor stars analysed by spectral synthesis of the near-UV
NH band at 3360 Å observed at high resolution with various
telescopes. We found that [N/Fe] scales with that of iron in the
metallicity range -3.1 <[Fe/H]<0 with the slope 0.01±0.02.
Furthermore, we derive uniform and accurate (N/O) ratios using oxygen
abundances from near-UV OH lines obtained in our previous studies. We
find that a primary component of nitrogen is required to explain the
observations. The NH lines are discovered in the VLT/UVES spectra of the
very metal-poor subdwarfs G64-12 and LP815-43 indicating that these
stars are N rich. The results are compared with theoretical models and
observations of extragalactic H II regions and Damped Lyα systems.
This is the first direct comparison of the (N/O) ratios in these objects
with those in Galactic stars.