Physics & Astronomy Colloquium – Spring 2020 – Bailin

Abstract: Globular star clusters used to be thought of as simple stellar populations: a collection of stars all formed at the same time with the same composition. But some of the heavy elements in the stars today must have been formed within the cluster. I will demonstrate that clumpy self-enrichment during cluster formation can match the observed small star-to-star  spreads in iron abundances, and that we can use the amount of self-enrichment to get a better view of the history of the Milky Way galaxy.