The solar abundance problem and eMSTOs in clusters

• Main Authors: Hoppe, R, Bergemann, M, Bitsch, B, Serenelli, A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 03-07-2020
• Subjects: Physics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; Physics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics; Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2007.01297

A&A 641, A73 (2020) We study the impact of accretion from protoplanetary discs on stellar
evolution of AFG-type stars. We use a simplified disc model computed using the
Two-Pop-Py code that contains the growth and drift of dust particles in the
protoplanetary disc. It is used to model the accretion scenarios for a range of
physical conditions of protoplanetary discs. Two limiting cases are combined
with the evolution of stellar convective envelopes computed using the Garstec
stellar evolution code. We find that the accretion of metal-poor (gas) or
metal-rich (dust) material has a significant impact on the chemical composition
of the stellar convective envelope. As a consequence, the evolutionary track of
the star diverts from the standard scenario predicted by canonical stellar
evolution models, which assume a constant and homogeneous chemical composition
after the assembly of the star has finished. In the case of the Sun, we find a
modest impact on the solar chemical composition. Accretion of metal-poor
material indeed reduces the overall metallicity of the solar atmosphere, and it
is consistent, within the uncertainty, with the solar Z reported by Caffau et
al. (2011), but our model is not consistent with the measurement by Asplund et
al. (2009). Another effect is the change of the position of the star in the
colour-magnitude diagram. We compare our predictions to a set of open clusters
from the Gaia DR2 and show that it is possible to produce a scatter close to
the turn-off of young clusters that could contribute to explain the observed
scatter in CMDs. Detailed measurements of metallicities and abundances in the
nearby open clusters will provide a stringent observational test of our
proposed scenario.