Primordial Nuclei and Their Galactic Evolution Proceedings of an ISSI Workshop 6–10 May 1997, Bern, Switzerland

The present volume, the fourth one in the "Space Sciences Series of ISSI" (Inter­ national Space Science Institute), contains the proceedings of a workshop on "Pri­ mordial Nuclei and Their Galactic Evolution", which was held at ISSI in Bern on 6-10 May 1997. This topic was chosen following some general enquiries with the scientific community concerning its desirability and timeliness. Five convenors, D. Duncan, C. Hogan, J. Linsky, N. Prantzos, and H. Reeves (chair) subsequently set up the workshop, nominated a list of invitees, structured the workshop into a series of introductory talks and into six topical working groups (early Universe­ extragalactic objects -low-Z stars - galactic disk and galactic evolution - solar nebula -local interstellar medium), and described the tasks of the working groups in a list of keywords. It is the main task of ISSI to bring together space scientists, ground-based observers, and theorists from different fields and to give them the opportunity to discuss and compare their results, thus contributing to the achievement of a deeper understanding, adding value to those results through multi-disciplinary research in an atmosphere of international co-operation. In that spirit the convenors selected participants working in fields ranging from Big Bang theory to observers oftoday's Solar System, thus spanning the widest possible range both in time and space.

I: Early Universe.- Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the Density of Baryons in the Universe.- Observed Densities in the Universe.- Non-BBN Constraints on the Key Cosmological Parameters.- Stars and Stellar Systems at z > 5: Implications for Structure Formation and Nucleosynthesis.- Big Bang Theory and Primordial Nuclei.- II: Extragalactic Objects.- On the Measurements of D/H in QSO Absorption Systems.- A Reverse Monte-Carlo Study of H+D Lyman Alpha Absorption from QSO Spectra.- The Primordial Helium-4 Abundance from Observations of a Large Sample of Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxies.- Temperature Fluctuations, Hii Region Abundances, and Primordial Helium.- Towards an Understanding of the Systematic Uncertainties in Deriving the Primordial Helium Abundance from Hii Region Observations.- Primordial Helium and ?Y/?Z from Hii Regions and from Fine Structure in the Main Sequence Based on Hipparcos Parallaxes.- Extragalactic Abundances of Hydrogen, Deuterium, and Helium.- III: Low-Z Stars.- The Low Metallicity Tail of the Halo Metallicity Distribution Function.- Lithium Abundances in Low-Z Stars.- Lithium Abundance in Pop. II Stars.- Galactic Evolution of the Light Elements: A New Set of B Observations.- Key Questions for Low-Metallicity Stars.- IV: Galactic Disk, Galactic Evolution.- Measurements of the 12C/13C Ratio in Planetary Nebulae and Implications for Stellar Evolution.- Helium-3: Status and Prospects.- Mixing in Stars and the Evolution of the 3He Abundance.- Galactic Evolution of D and 3He.- Halo White Dwarfs and Baryonic Dark Matter.- The Chemical Evolution of the Milky Way Disk.- V: Solar Nebula.- Abundances of Deuterium and Helium-3 in the Protosolar Cloud.- Galileo Probe Measurements of D/H and 3He/4He in Jupiter’s Atmosphere.- Evidence of Element Diffusion Inside theSun and the Stars and its Consequences on the Lithium Primordial Abundance.- VI: Local Interstellar Medium.- Measurement of the Abundance of Helium-3 in the Sun and in the Local Interstellar Cloud with SWICS on Ulysses.- Deuterium Abundance in the Local ISM and Possible Spatial Variations.- Deuterium Observations in the Galaxy.- Local Interstellar Medium.- Epilogue.- Workshop Summary.- Author Index.- List of Participants.