Impact of radiative accelerations on the stellar characterization of FGK-type stars using spectroscopic and seismic constraints

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Universidade do Porto, CAUP, Rua das Estrelas, PT4150-762 Porto, Portugal
² Departamento de Física e Astronomia, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, s/n, PT4169-007 Porto, Portugal
³ LUPM, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Place Eugène Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier, France
⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia Galileo Galilei, Università di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 3, I-35122 Padova, Italy
⁵ Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova – INAF, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy

^⋆ Corresponding author; nmoedas@astro.up.pt

Received: 22 November 2024
Accepted: 28 January 2025

Abstract

Context. Chemical transport mechanisms are fundamental processes in stellar evolution models. They are responsible for the chemical distribution, and their impact determines how accurately we can characterize stars. Radiative accelerations are one of these processes. They allow the accumulation of elements at different depths in the star.

Aims. We aim to assess the impact of radiative accelerations on the modeling of FGK-type stars and their impact on the prediction of surface abundances.

Methods. To reduce the cost of the computation of radiative accelerations, we implemented the single-valued parameters (SVP) method in the stellar evolution code MESA. The SVP method is more efficient in calculating radiative accelerations, which enables computations of large enough grids of models for stellar characterization.

Results. Compared to models that include atomic diffusion (with only gravitational settling), the inclusion of radiative accelerations has a small effect on the inference of fundamental properties, with an impact of 2%, 0.7%, and 5% for mass, radius, and age. However, the treatment of radiative accelerations is necessary to predict the chemical composition of and accurately characterize stars.