Stellar models: firm evidence, open questions and future developments
Abstract
During this last decade our knowledge of the evolutionary properties of stars has significantly improved. This result has been achieved thanks to our improved understanding of the physical behavior of stellar matter in the thermal regimes characteristic of the different stellar mass ranges and/or evolutionary stages.
This notwithstanding, the current generation of stellar models is still affected by several, not negligible, uncertainties related to our poor knowledge of some thermodynamical processes and nuclear reaction rates, as well as the efficiency of mixing processes. These drawbacks have to be properly taken into account when comparing theory with observations, to derive evolutionary properties of both resolved and unresolved stellar populations. In this paper we review the major sources of uncertainty along the main evolutionary stages, and emphasize their impact on population synthesis techniques.- Publication:
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Stellar Populations - Planning for the Next Decade
- Pub Date:
- April 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921310002450
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0909.4629
- Bibcode:
- 2010IAUS..262...13C
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, 3 figures, Keynote review talk at the IAU Symp. 262 "Stellar Populations - Planning the Next Decade" of the XXVIIth IAU General Assembly held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Proceeding eds. G. Bruzual &