Star Formation and Chemical Evolution in the Milky Way: Cosmological Implications

Abstract

We propose an expression for the star formation rate in spiral galaxies and a model of chemical evolution with a minimal number of adjustable parameters. Our model accounts for most of the relevant data in the Milky Way. By adopting our Galaxy as a prototype, we are able to derive cosmological implications for the comoving star formation rate, gas amount, gaseous abundances, and supernova rates as a function of redshift.