Updated Electron-Conduction Opacities: The Impact on Low-Mass Stellar Models

By Santi Cassisi, A. Potekhin, Adriano Pietrinferni, Márcio Catelán, Maurizio Salaris. 2007

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We review the theory of electron-conduction opacity, a fundamental ingredient in the computation of low-mass stellar models; shortcomings and limitations of the existing calculations used in stellar evolution are discussed. We then present new determinations of the electron-conduction opacity in stellar conditions for an arbitrary chemical composition that improve over previous works and, most importantly, cover the whole parameter space relevant to stellar evolution models (i.e., both the regime of partial and high electron degeneracy). A detailed comparison with the currently used tabulations is also performed. The impact of our new opacities on the evolution of low-mass stars is assessed by computing stellar models along both the H- and He-burning evolutionary phases, as well as main sequence models of very low-mass stars and white dwarf cooling tracks.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/152b189369848d7c1446eb326faa8e0c0bf94e36

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Citations in the corpus

Neutron Stars—Cooling and Transport (2015, background): “(A.4) A satisfactory accuracy of this interpolation has been verified by Cassisi et al. (2007).”
Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Time-dependent Convection, Energy Conservation, Automatic Differentiation, and Infrastructure (2022, background): “The conductive opacities in MESA are expanded versions of the tables from Cassisi et al. (2007), see MESA II, Appendix A.3.”
MODULES FOR EXPERIMENTS IN STELLAR ASTROPHYSICS (MESA) (2010, methodology): “In the rare circumstances where ρ or T are outside the region covered by Cassisi et al. (2007) ( − 6 (cid:2) log ρ (cid:2) 9 .”
Constraints from Gravitational-wave Detections of Binary Black Hole Mergers on the 12C(α, γ)16O Rate (2020, unknown): “Electron conduction opacities are taken from Cassisi et al. (2007).”
MODULES FOR EXPERIMENTS IN STELLAR ASTROPHYSICS (MESA): PLANETS, OSCILLATIONS, ROTATION, AND MASSIVE STARS (2013, background): “The electron conduction opacity tables, based on Cassisi et al. (2007), have been expanded (Potekhin 2011, priv. comm.) to cover higher temperatures (up to 1010 K, originally 109 K) and densities (up to 1011.5 g cm−3, originally 109.75 g cm−3).”
On the Spectral Evolution of Hot White Dwarf Stars. I. A Detailed Model Atmosphere Analysis of Hot White Dwarfs from SDSS DR12 (2020, background): “The primary source of discrepancy between our previous and current generations of calculations at low temperatures is the inclusion of the conductive opacities of Cassisi et al. (2007) in STELUM.”
MESA ISOCHRONES AND STELLAR TRACKS (MIST). I. SOLAR-SCALED MODELS (2016, background): “The electron conduction opacity tables are originally based on Cassisi et al. (2007), but they have been extended to cover temperatures up to 1010 K and densities up to 1011.5 g cm−3 (Paxton et al. 2013).”
Revisiting the axion bounds from the Galactic white dwarf luminosity function (2014, background): “Conductive opacities are those of [31] while radiative opacities are those of the OPAL project [32] complemented at low temperatures by the molecular opacities produced by [33].”
The Updated BaSTI Stellar Evolution Models and Isochrones. I. Solar-scaled Calculations (2018, result): “As for the electron conduction opacities, at variance with the models presented in Pietrinferni et al. (2004, 2006), we have now adopted the results by Cassisi et al. (2007).”
Models of low-mass helium white dwarfs including gravitational settling, thermal and chemical diffusion, and rotational mixing (2016, unknown): “…13C, 13N, 14N, 15N, 14O, 15O, 16O, 17O, 18O, 17F, 18F, 19F,18Ne, 19Ne, 20Ne, 22Mg and 24Mg. Radiative opacities are taken from Ferguson et al. (2005) for 2.7 ≤ log T ≤ 4.5 and OPAL (Iglesias & Rogers 1993, 1996) for 3.75 ≤ log T ≤ 8.7 and conductive opacities are adopted from Cassisi et al. (2007).”
NEW COOLING SEQUENCES FOR OLD WHITE DWARFS (2010, methodology): “We adopted the conductive opacities of Cassisi et al. (2007), which cover the entire regime where electron conduction is relevant.”
Seismic diagnostics for transport of angular momentum in stars. I. Rotational splittings from the pre-main sequence to the red-giant branch. (2012, unknown): “We included Pothekhin’s updated conductive opacities (see e. g. Cassisi et al. 2007).”