English

MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks. II. Models with alpha-enhanced chemical composition

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2026-02-26 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We update and expand the MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks (MIST) database to include variations in the alpha-capture elements, specifically [alpha/Fe]=-0.2, 0, +0.2, +0.4, and +0.6 for -3 <= [Fe/H] <= +0.5. Variations in [alpha/Fe] are included in a self-consistent manner from the stellar interior models to the synthetic spectra used to translate these models in the observational plane. We describe a number of updates to the physics utilized in these models as well as new information provided by the models. We validate the models with comparisons to other stellar evolution models including the previous generation of MIST and other models from the literature. MIST data products including stellar evolutiont tracks, isochrones, and bolometric correction tables can be obtained from the MIST project website, https://mist.science. All necessary files to reproduce MIST models are available from Zenodo.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.22012,
  title  = {MESA Isochrones and Stellar Tracks. II. Models with alpha-enhanced chemical composition},
  author = {A Dotter and E Bauer and MJ Park and C Conroy and A Milone and M Joyce and M Cantiello},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.22012},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS; new server at https://mist.science

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:52:15.120Z