English

Lithium isotopes in population II dwarfs

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v2

Abstract

We investigate the history of 6^6Li and 7^7Li in population II dwarfs during the pre main sequence and main sequence. The evolution is followed using the CESAM code and taking into account the most recent physics. The effective temperature ranges from \approx 4700 K to \approx 6400 K and therefore concerns objects on the so-called Spite plateau and cooler. We find the 7^7Li pre main sequence depletion is unable to account for the observations in the halo whatever the effective temperature. This supports microscopic diffusion and an additional non standard mixing process both acting during the main sequence. On the contrary the models 6^6Li pre main sequence depletion appears too strong and is marginally compatible with recent detections. During the main sequence we introduce the effects of tachocline diffusion. This process is a rotationnally induced mixing acting at the top of the radiative core. We show that the differences in the early rotation history cannot result in scattered lithium abundances on the Spite plateau. Moreover the tachocline mixing process predicts 7^7Li abundances in good agreement with the observations. We briefly address the question of turn off 7^7Li poor stars. A modest accretion of lithium free matter would be enough to explain their low abundance in this element. We expect the scatter in 7^7Li abundances is correlated to variations in [Fe/O] ratio for dwarfs cooler than 5500 K. Finally the tachocline mixing is robust with respect to the recent 6^6Li observations around the turn-off. We similarly suggest the [Fe/O] should be higher in objects with 6^6Li and effective temperature below 6000 K.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0511402,
  title  = {Lithium isotopes in population II dwarfs},
  author = {Laurent Piau},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0511402},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

18 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables New version due to a missing reference in bibliographic index (Smith et al 1998)and problems in the positioning of the table 4 and figures 7 & 8. Submitted to ApJ

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