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

Abstract

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 .