The age of the Sun and the relativistic corrections in the EOS
1
INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, Città Universitaria, 95123 Catania, Italy
2
Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Twelve Quays House, Egerton Wharf, Birkenhead CH41 1LD, UK
3
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell'Università, Sezione Astrofisica, Città Universitaria, 95123 Catania, Italy
Corresponding author: A. Bonanno, abo@ct.astro.it
Received:
18
April
2002
Accepted:
13
May
2002
We show that the inclusion of special relativistic
corrections in the revised OPAL and MHD equations of state has a
significant impact on the helioseismic determination of the solar age.
Models with relativistic corrections included lead to a reduction of about
with respect
to those obtained with the old OPAL or MHD EOS. Our best-fit value is
which is in remarkably good agreement
with the meteoritic value for the solar age.
We argue that the inclusion of relativistic corrections is important for
probing the evolutionary state of a star
by means of the small frequency separations
,
for spherical harmonic degrees 
and radial order 
.
Key words: Sun: interior / Sun: oscillations / equation of state
© ESO, 2002