How galaxies form: Mass assembly from chemical abundances in the era of large surveys

Abstract

The chemical abundances in the atmosphere of a star provide unique information about the gas from which that star formed, and, modulo processes that are not important for the vast majority of stars, such as mass transfer in close binary systems, are conserved through a star's life. Correlations between chemistry and kinematics have been used for decades to trace dynamical evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy. I discuss how it should be possible to refine and extend such analyses, provided planned large-scale deep imaging surveys have matched spectroscopic surveys.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, invited review at `Chemical abundances in the Universe, connecting first stars to planets', Proceedings of IAU Symposium No. 265, K. Cunha, M. Spite and B. Barbuy, eds, Cambridge University Press, in pres