Uncertainties and systematics in stellar evolution models of Red Giant Stars

Abstract

In this last decade, our knowledge of evolutionary and structural properties of stars of different mass and chemical composition has significantly improved. This notwithstanding, updated stellar models are still affected by significant and, usually, not negligible uncertainties. These uncertainties are related to our poor knowledge of some physical processes occurring in the real stars such as the efficiency of mixing processes. These drawbacks of stellar models have to be properly taken into account when comparing theory with observations. In this paper we briefly review current uncertainties affecting low-mass stellar models, i.e. those structures with mass in the range between 0.6 Msun and ~1.4 Msun, during the Red Giant Branch stage.

Proc. of the workshop "Red Giants as Probes of the Structure and Evolution of the Milky Way" (Roma, 15-17 Nov 2010), Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, ISBN 978-3-642-18417-8 (eds. A. Miglio, J. Montalban, A. Noels). Part of RedGiantsMilkyWay/2011/ proceedings available at http://arxiv.org/html/1108.4406v1

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Particle-physics constraints from the globular cluster M5: Neutrino Dipole Moments
• The BaSTI Stellar Evolution Database: models for extremely metal-poor and super-metal-rich stellar populations
• Precise radial velocities of giant stars. X. Bayesian stellar parameters and evolutionary stages for 372 giant stars from the Lick planet search
• Synthetic photometry for carbon-rich giants. III. Tracing the sequence of mass-losing galactic C-type Miras
• From Theory to Observations and viceversa: theoretical uncertainties and observational constraints