The evolution of cosmic star formation, metals and gas

Abstract

We reconstruct the history of the cosmic star formation as well as the cosmic production of metals in the universe by means of detailed chemical evolution models for galaxies of different morphological types. We consider a picture of coeval, non-interacting evolving galaxies where ellipticals experience intense and rapid starbursts within the first Gyr after their formation, and spirals and irregulars continue to form stars at lower rates up to the present time. We show that spirals are the main contributors to the decline of the luminosity density in all bands between z=1 and z=0.

4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of: The Evolution of Galaxies. III: From simple approaches to self-consistent models (Kiel, Gemany, July 2002)