The brightness of the Red Giant Branch tip: Theoretical framework, a set of reference models, and predicted observables

Abstract

The brightness of the tip of the Red Giant Branch is a useful reference quantity for several fields of astrophysics. An accurate theoretical prediction is needed for such purposes. Aims. We intend to provide a solid theoretical prediction for it, valid for a reference set of standard physical assumptions, and mostly independent of numerical details. We examine the dependence on physical assumptions and numerical details, for a wide range of metallicities and masses, and based on two different stellar evolution codes. We adjust differences between the codes to treat the physics as identical as possible. After we have succeeded in reproducing the tip brightness between the codes, we present a reference set of models based on the most up to date physical inputs, but neglecting microscopic diffusion, and convert theoretical luminosities to observed infrared colours suitable for observations of resolved populations of stars and include analytic fits to facilitate their use. We find that consistent use of updated nuclear reactions, including an appropriate treatment of the electron screening effects, and careful time-stepping on the upper red giant branch are the most important aspects to bring initially discrepant theoretical values into agreement. Small, but visible differences remain unexplained for very low metallicities and mass values at and above 1.2 Msun, corresponding to ages younger than 4 Gyr. The colour transformations introduce larger uncertainties than the differences between the two stellar evolution codes. We demonstrate that careful stellar modeling allows an accurate prediction for the luminosity of the Red Giant Branch tip. Differences to empirically determined brightnesses may result either from insufficient colour transformations or from deficits in the constitutional physics. We present the best-tested theoretical reference values to date.

arXiv comment14 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (47)

• A grid of MARCS model atmospheres for late-type stars I. Methods and general properties
• The Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Database
• A large stellar evolution database for population synthesis studies. I. Scaled solar models and isochrones
• Low Temperature Opacities
• Color Transformations for the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: 2015
• Solar fusion cross sections II: the pp chain and CNO cycles
• Element Diffusion in the Solar Interior
• Updated Electron-Conduction Opacities: The Impact on Low-Mass Stellar Models
• Planck intermediate results. XLVI. Reduction of large-scale systematic effects in HFI polarization maps and estimation of the reionization optical depth
• A new Generation of Standard Solar Models
• Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances. II. Zero-Point Calibration
• Distances, ages, and epoch of formation of globular clusters
• Synthetic Stellar Photometry - I. General considerations and new transformations for broad-band systems
• A standard stellar library for evolutionary synthesis. III. Metallicity calibration
• The Extragalactic Distance Database: Color-Magnitude Diagrams
• Neutrino and axion bounds from the globular cluster M5 (NGC 5904)
• An Empirical UBVRIJHK Color-Temperature Calibration for Stars
• Standard and Non-Standard Plasma Neutrino Emission Revisited
• Red Giant Branch stars: the theoretical framework
• A step toward the calibration of the RGB Tip as a Standard Candle
• Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances. I. Optimization of a Maximum Likelihood Algorithm
• Red giant bound on the axion-electron coupling reexamined
• The initial Helium content of Galactic Globular Cluster stars from the R-parameter: comparison with the CMB constraint
• The Solar Heavy Element Abundances: I. Constraints from Stellar Interiors
• Stellar Models with Enhanced Abundances of C, N, O, Ne, Na, Mg, Si, S, Ca, and Ti, in Turn, at Constant Helium and Iron Abundances
• The calibration of the RGB Tip as a Standard Candle: Extension to Near Infrared colors and higher metallicity
• The "Tip" of the Red Giant Branch as a distance indicator: results from evolutionary models
• Un updated theoretical scenario for globular cluster stars
• The bottleneck of the CNO burning and the age of the Globular Clusters
• A new analysis of the Red Giant Branch "Tip" distance scale and the value of the Hubble constant
• Color transformations and bolometric corrections for Galactic halo stars: alpha-enhanced vs scaled-solar results
• The chemical composition of the Sun from helioseismic and solar neutrino data
• The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies. IV. Color Dependence and Zero-Point Calibration
• On the proper use of the Schwarzschild and Ledoux criteria in stellar evolution computations
• Particle-physics constraints from the globular cluster M5: Neutrino Dipole Moments
• Tip of the Red Giant Branch distances to galaxies with composite stellar populations
• Cumulative physical uncertainty in modern stellar models I. The case of low-mass stars
• Infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch and Distances to the Maffei/IC 342 Group
• Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to NGC 4214, UGC 685, and UGC 5456
• The Helium-Core Mass at the Helium Flash in Low-Mass Red Giant Stars: Observations and Theory
• A Bayesian Approach to Locating the Red Giant Branch Tip Magnitude (Part I)
• Influence of two updated nuclear reaction rates on the evolution of low and intermediate mass stars
• Variations in Star Formation History and the Red Giant Branch Tip
• The impact of an updated ${}^{14}N(p,\gamma {)}^{15}O$ reaction rate on advanced evolutionary stages of low-mass stellar models
• The Araucaria Project. On the Tip of the Red Giant Branch distance determination to the Magellanic Clouds
• Selected topics in the evolution of low-mass stars

Cited by in corpus (64)

• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VIII. An Independent Determination of the Hubble Constant Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• The landscape of QCD axion models
• Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB)
• The Updated BaSTI Stellar Evolution Models and Isochrones: I. Solar Scaled Calculations
• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• A buyer's guide to the Hubble Constant
• Age dissection of the Milky Way discs: red giants in the Kepler field
• Axion and neutrino bounds improved with new calibrations of the tip of the red-giant branch using geometric distance determinations
• Cosmicflows-4
• Comparing Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance Scales: An Independent Reduction of the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program and the Value of the Hubble Constant
• Astrophysical Axion Bounds: The 2024 Edition
• Old-Aged Stellar Population Distance Indicators
• The RGB tip of galactic globular clusters and the revision of the bound of the axion-electron coupling
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VII. The Distance to M101 via the Optical Tip of the Red Giant Branch Method
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. III. The Distance to NGC 1365 via the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• Stellar Evolution confronts Axion Models
• Axion Astrophysics
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of NGC 253 Dwarf Satellites: Discovery of Three Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxies
• The Near-Infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch. II. An Absolute Calibration in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Using the Tip of the Red Giant Branch as a Distance Indicator in the Near Infrared
• The Local Distance Network: a community consensus report on the measurement of the Hubble constant at 1% precision
• The Near-Infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch. I. A Calibration in the Isolated Dwarf Galaxy IC 1613
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Two Faint Dwarf Satellites of Nearby LMC Analogs from MADCASH
• White dwarfs as Physics laboratories: lights and shadows
• A bottom-heavy initial mass function for the likely-accreted blue-halo stars of the Milky Way
• MCR-TRGB: A Multiwavelength-Covariant, Robust Tip of the Red Giant Branch Measurement Method
• Constraints on the Distance Moduli, Helium and Metal Abundances, and Ages of Globular Clusters From Their RR Lyrae and Non-Variable Horizontal-Branch Stars. III. M55 and NGC 6362
• On Stellar Evolution In A Neutrino Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
• Quantifying Uncertainties on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch Method
• On the physical nature of globular cluster candidates in the Milky Way bulge
• The Araucaria Project. Multi-band calibrations of the TRGB absolute magnitude
• Comparative Analysis of TRGBs (CATs) from Unsupervised, Multi-Halo-Field Measurements: Contrast is Key
• Dark matter capture and annihilation in stars: Impact on the red giant branch tip
• An Empirical Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance Method in the Near Infrared. I. HST WFC3/IR F110W and F160W Filters
• Carbon stars as standard candles -- III. Un-binned maximum likelihood fitting and comparison with TRGB estimations
• Relativistic corrections for measuring Hubble's constant to 1% using stellar standard candles
• Galactic Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• The Distance and Dynamical History of the Virgo Cluster Ultradiffuse Galaxy VCC 615
• Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of Isolated Local Volume Dwarfs GALFA-Dw3 and Dw4
• A 5% measurement of the gravitational constant in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Distances to Local Group Galaxies via Population II, Stellar Distance Indicators. II. The Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal
• The APOGEE Library of Infrared SSP Templates (A-LIST): High-Resolution Simple Stellar Population Spectral Models in the H-Band
• An Intriguing Globular Cluster in the Galactic Bulge from the VVV Survey
• New calibrated models for the TRGB luminosity and a thorough analysis of theoretical uncertainties
• Standardized Luminosity of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch utilizing Multiple Fields in NGC 4258 and the CATs Algorithm
• Coordinated JWST Imaging of Three Distance Indicators in a SN Host Galaxy and an Estimate of the TRGB Color Dependence
• Observational constraints on the origin of the elements. IX. 3D NLTE abundances of metals in the context of Galactic Chemical Evolution Models and 4MOST
• Stellar Neutrino Emission Across The Mass-Metallicity Plane
• Tip of the red giant branch distance to the nearby dwarf galaxy [TT2009] 25 in the NGC 891 group
• A Geometric Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch in the Milky Way using Gaia DR3
• The VMC Survey - XXXIII. The tip of the red giant branch in the Magellanic Clouds
• Models for Metal-Poor Stars with Different Initial Abundances of C, N, O, Mg, and Si. III. Grids of Isochrones for $-2.5\le$ [Fe/H] $\le -0.5$ and Helium Abundances $Y=0.25$ and $0.29$ at Each Metallicity
• Calibrating and standardizing the Tip of the Red Giant Branch in the Small Magellanic Cloud using small-amplitude red giants
• The red giant branch tip in the SDSS, PS1, JWST, NGRST and Euclid photometric systems. Calibration in optical passbands using Gaia DR3 synthetic photometry
• Benchmarking the effective temperature scale of red giant branch stellar models: the case of the metal-poor halo giant HD 122563
• Distances to Local Group Galaxies via Population II, Stellar Distance Indicators I: The Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal
• Weighing stars from birth to death: mass determination methods across the HRD
• Stellar evolution and axion-like particles: new constraints and hints from globular clusters in the GAIA DR3 data
• Constraining dark photon properties with Asteroseismology
• The Chicago Carnegie Hubble Program: Improving the Calibration of SNe Ia with JWST Measurements of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• The $i$-processes nucleosynthesis during the formation of He-rich hot-subdwarf stars
• The Impact of Neutrino Magnetic Moments on the Evolution of the Helium Flash and Lithium-Rich Red Clump Stars
• Impact of Simultaneous Stellar Modeling Uncertainties on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch for Axion-Election Coupling
• Automated Identification of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch in Globular Clusters with Gaia Data