Investigating the physical process driving the evolution of gas, metals and dust in local and high-redshift low-metallicity galaxies

The chemical enrichment in the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies is regulated by several physical processes: star birth and death, grain formation and destruction and galactic inflows and outflows. Understanding such processes and their relative importance is essential in order to follow galaxy evolution and the chemical enrichment through the cosmic epochs, and to interpret the available and future observations. Despite the importance of such topics, the contribution of different stellar sources to the chemical enrichment of galaxies, e.g. massive stars exploding as type II supernovae and low-mass stars, as well as the mechanisms driving the evolution of dust grains, e.g. grain growth in the ISM and destruction by SN shocks, remain controversial both on the observational and on the theoretical viewpoints. In this seminar I will revise our current knowledge on these physical processes and the observational challenges, and I will present what I have learned from a recent investigation focused on local low-metallicity galaxies and on Lyman Break Galaxies, often considered to be their high-redshift counterparts. In particular, I will discuss the importance of stellar sources, the galactic outflow and of grain accretion and destruction in the ISM.