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Metals in the Universe and Diffuse Background Radiation

B. E. J. Pagel
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Abstract

An attempt is made to guess the overall cosmic abundance of `metals' and the contribution made by the energy released in their production to the total intensity of extragalactic background light (EBL). With a comparable or somewhat larger amount coming from white dwarfs, and a probably quite modest contribution from AGNs, one can fairly easily account for the lower end of the range of existing estimates for the total EBL intensity (50to 60 nwt m$^{-2}$ sterad$^{-1}$), but it seems more difficult should some higher estimates (90 to 100 in the same units) prove to be correct.

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B. E. J. Pagel. 2001-07-12. Metals in the Universe and Diffuse Background Radiation. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0107215

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