Lithium Abundance, Diffusion and Turbulence

Extract

Richer & Michaud (1993) calculated a series of envelopes fully coupled to non-rotating, constant mass, stellar evolution models of hydrogen burning stars with masses in the range of 1.2 to 2.2 M_⊙, typical of A and F main sequence stars. They included He settling. The location of the theoretically predicted gap of the Hyades agrees quite well with the observed one, a result obtained without the introduction of any free parameter. At temperatures above the gap, while the observed lithium abundances are within a factor of 2-3 of normal values, the theoretical calculated curve drops to very low values. Diffusion velocities being fairly small, any other physical process with larger or similar velocities can reduce the effect of diffusion and produce the observed results. Mass loss is one such process. Another difficulty with the present theory is the width of the gap. Observations show that the observed gap is wider than the calculated one in the Hyades. This also suggests that other physical processes play an important role.