论文标题

红色巨人的玩具总动员II:了解红色巨人分支颠簸

A Red Giants' Toy Story II: Understanding the Red-Giant Branch Bump

论文作者

Bertolami, Marcelo M. Miller

论文摘要

红色巨型分支凹凸(RGBB)是恒星簇的红色巨型光度功能中最值得注意的特征之一。它是由燃烧壳的通过通过对流包膜最深渗透点留下的组成不连续性引起的。当跨越不连续性时,亮度增加的通常趋势会在短时间内逆转,然后再增加,从而导致进化轨道中的曲折。尽管显然很简单,但尚未很好地理解亮度降低背后的实际物理原因,并且提供了几种不同的解释。在这里,我们使用最近提出的简单玩具模式用于低质量红色巨人的结构,以及先前的结果,以表明RGBB处的发光度的变化可以追溯到燃烧壳顶部的层平均分子量的变化。这些变化发生在核时期。当燃烧的壳接近不连续性时,有效平均分子量的变化会导致燃烧壳的温度下降,从而导致随之而来的反馈收缩在燃烧壳下方下方的层的反馈收缩。我们的工作表明,当正确应用时,包括对核心结构的反馈以及核心质量的增加,Shell-Source同源性关系在解释RGBB上完整进化模型的性质方面做出了很大的定量工作。

The Red-Giant Branch Bump (RGBB) is one of the most noteworthy features in the red-giant luminosity function of stellar clusters. It is caused by the passage of the hydrogen-burning shell through the composition discontinuity left at the point of the deepest penetration by the convective envelope. When crossing the discontinuity the usual trend in increasing luminosity reverses for a short time before it increases again, causing a zig-zag in the evolutionary track. In spite of its apparent simplicity the actual physical reason behind the decrease in luminosity is not well understood and several different explanations have been offered. Here we use a recently proposed simple toy-model for the structure of low-mass red giants, together with previous results, to show beyond reasonable doubt that the change in luminosity at the RGBB can be traced to the change in the mean molecular weight of the layers on top of the burning shell. And that these changes happen on a nuclear timescale. The change in the effective mean molecular weight, as the burning shell approaches the discontinuity, causes a drop in the temperature of the burning shell which is attenuated by the consequent feedback contraction of the layers immediately below the burning shell. Our work shows that, when applied correctly, including the feedback on the structure of the core together with of the increase in the mass of the core, shell-source homology relations do a great quantitative job in explaining the properties of full evolutionary models at the RGBB.

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