The effects of new D line profiles in cool atmospheres

¹ Hamburger Sternwarte, Universität Hamburg, Gojenbergsweg 112, 21029 Hamburg, Germany e-mail: cjohnas@hs.uni-hamburg.de
² School of Mathematics, Physics and Information Technology, James Cook University, Townsville 4811, Australia
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, WC1E 6BT, UK

Received: 10 January 2007
Accepted: 31 January 2007

Abstract

Aims.New D line profiles and their effects on synthetic spectra of cool dwarfs computed with PHOENIX are studied. Sodium is the most abundant alkali in cool dwarf atmospheres and mostly responsible for the shape of the optical spectrum.

Methods.In previous work we have pointed out the importance of atomic hydrogen as a perturber. Here, broadening due to collisions with atomic hydrogen as well as fully quantum mechanically calculated profiles for perturbations by helium are introduced for the resonance line profiles. Furthermore, the effects of the new line profiles are compared to already existing line profile calculations.

Results.We have calculated a number of “GAIA-cond” class model atmospheres and synthetic spectra for effective temperatures from 1100 K to 3000 K considering a gravity of 4.5. The line formation process has been analyzed with the flux contribution function. Due to changes in atmospheric structure, the effects of the line profiles on the synthetic spectra become larger for smaller effective temperatures. The influence of hydrogen as perturber is visible at higher effective temperatures although at the same time the strength of molecular bands increases. Furthermore, the newly introduced fully quantum mechanically calculated broadened profiles change the synthetic spectra by reducing the flux and the depths of the sodium absorption lines.