Chemical Abundances in Carbon-enhanced Metal-poor Stars

Metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo were born during the first few generations following the Big Bang, and thus provide key insights regarding conditions in the early Universe. Carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars, a subset of this population, are of even further interest because of their peculiar elemental abundance patterns. We studied high-resolution spectra of ten CEMP stars to learn more about the sources of their carbon excess, and now have preliminary abundances for up to 29 elements in our sample. Carbon enhancement in the stellar atmospheres was taken into consideration when conducting the abundance analysis, but did not appear to have a significant effect on derived abundances. Comparison of heavy element abundance ratios to the solar system pattern will be used to study nucleosynthesis at extremely low metallicities.No embarg