Elisabetta Caffau first Gliese-Fellow at ZAH

Dr. Elisabetta Caffau was selected to be the first Gliese-Fellow at ZAH. Since the beginning of September 2010 she works on modelling stellar atmospheres with a focus on the determination of the chemical composition of the stars. Her work is closely related to topics of the research group of Prof. Norbert Christlieb at the Landessternwarte Königstuhl (LSW).

Dr. Elisabetta Caffau received her PhD in May 2009 at the Observatoire de Paris, under the supervision of Dr. Hans-G Ludwig, with a thesis on hydrodynamical model atmospheres. Five years ago, within the Marie Curie excellence team CIFIST (“Cosmological Impact of the First STars”) hosted at the Observatoire de Paris, she started the project to compute a grid of model atmospheres covering the main sequence and the giant branch of late-type stars, for different metallicities. Her results are important for the interpretation of stellar spectra, explicitly those of metal poor stars. They will contribute to a better understanding of the chemical evolution of the early universe. At the Landessternwarte she will work on the following issues for the next three years:
- complete the grid of 3D model atmospheres;
- analyse the 3D effects throughout the HR diagram for some particular lines, such as the oxygen infrared triplet;
- continue the abundance investigation of the solar photosphere;
- continue the search of candidates of metal-poor stars, to observe the promising candidates at high resolution and analyse them.

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