No Arabic abstract
We study the formation of B I lines in a grid of cool stellar model atmospheres without the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). The non-LTE modelling includes the effect of other lines blending with the B I resonance lines. Except for the cases where the B I lines are very strong, the departures from LTE relevant for the resonance lines can be described as an overionisation effect and an optical-pumping effect. This causes the lines to be weaker than in LTE so that an abundance analysis assuming LTE will underestimate stellar boron abundances. We present non-LTE abundance corrections useful to improve on abundances derived from the B I 250 nm and 209 nm lines under the LTE assumption. Application of the results on literature data indicates that the B/Fe ratio in metal-poor stars is constant.
We present a grid of computed non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) equivalent widths (EW) and NLTE abundance corrections for four Ba II lines: 4554, 5853, 6141, and 6496 A. The grid can be useful in deriving the NLTE barium abundance in stars having parameters in the following ranges: effective temperature from 4000 K to 6500 K, surface gravity log g from 0 to 5, microturbulent velocity 0 km s^-1 to 3 km s^-1, metallicity [Fe/H] from -2 to +0.5, and [Ba/Fe] from -0.4 to +0.6. The NLTE abundance can be either derived by EW interpolation (using the observed Ba II line EW) or by using the NLTE correction applied to a previously determined LTE abundance. Ba II line equivalent widths and the NLTE corrections were calculated using the updated MULTI code and the Ba II atomic model that was previously applied to determine the NLTE barium abundance in different types of stars. The grid is available on-line through the web, and we find that the grid Ba NLTE corrections are almost as accurate as direct NLTE profile fitting (to within 0.05-0.08 dex). For the weakest Ba II line (5853 A) the LTE abundances almost agree with the NLTE abundances, whereas the other three Ba II lines, 4554, 6141, and 6496 A, need NLTE corrections even at the highest metallicities tested here. The 4554 A line is extremely strong and should not be used for abundance analysis above [Fe/H]= -1. Furthermore, we tested the impact of different model atmospheres and spectrum synthesis codes and found average differences of 0.06 dex and 0.09 dex, respectively, for all four lines. At these metallicities we find an average Delta NLTE of +/-0.1 dex for the three useful Ba lines for subsolar cool dwarfs.
Manganese (Mn) is a key Fe-group elements, commonly employed in stellar population and nucleosynthesis studies to explore the role of SN Ia. We have developed a new non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) model of Mn, including new photo-ionisation cross-sections and new transition rates caused by collisions with H and H- atoms. We applied the model in combination with 1-dimensional (1D) LTE model atmospheres and 3D hydrodynamical simulations of stellar convection to quantify the impact of NLTE and convection on the line formation. We show that the effects of NLTE are present in Mn I and, to a lesser degree, in Mn II lines, and these increase with metallicity and with effective temperature of a model. Employing 3D NLTE radiative transfer, we derive new abundance of Mn in the Sun, A(Mn)=5.52 +/- 0.03 dex, consistent with the element abundance in C I meteorites. We also apply our methods to the analysis of three metal-poor benchmark stars. We find that 3D NLTE abundances are significantly higher than 1D LTE. For dwarfs, the differences between 1D NLTE and 3D NLTE abundances are typically within 0.15 dex, however, the effects are much larger in the atmospheres of giants owing to their more vigorous convection. We show that 3D NLTE successfully solves the ionisation and excitation balance for the RGB star HD 122563 that cannot be achieved by 1D LTE or 1D NLTE modelling. For HD 84937 and HD 140283, the ionisation balance is satisfied, however, the resonance Mn I triplet lines still show somewhat lower abundances compared to the high-excitation lines. Our results for the benchmark stars confirm that 1D LTE modelling leads to significant systematic biases in Mn abundances across the full wavelength range from the blue to the IR. We also produce a list of Mn lines that are not significantly biased by 3D and can be reliably, within the 0.1 dex uncertainty, modelled in 1D NLTE.
An analysis of H alpha and H beta spectra in a sample of 30 cool dwarf and subgiant stars is presented using MARCS model atmospheres based on the most recent calculations of the line opacities. A detailed quantitative comparison of the solar flux spectra with model spectra shows that Balmer line profile shapes, and therefore the temperature structure in the line formation region, are best represented under the mixing length theory by any combination of a low mixing-length parameter alpha and a low convective structure parameter y. A slightly lower effective temperature is obtained for the sun than the accepted value, which we attribute to errors in models and line opacities. The programme stars span temperatures from 4800 to 7100 K and include a small number of population II stars. Effective temperatures have been derived using a quantitative fitting method with a detailed error analysis. Our temperatures find good agreement with those from the Infrared Flux Method (IRFM) near solar metallicity but show differences at low metallicity where the two available IRFM determinations themselves are in disagreement. Comparison with recent temperature determinations using Balmer lines by Fuhrmann (1998, 2000), who employed a different description of the wing absorption due to self-broadening, does not show the large differences predicted by Barklem et al. (2000). In fact, perhaps fortuitously, reasonable agreement is found near solar metallicity, while we find significantly cooler temperatures for low metallicity stars of around solar temperature.
We present a model atom for C I - C II - C III - C IV using the most up-to-date atomic data and evaluated the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) line formation in classical 1D atmospheric models of O-B-type stars. Our models predict the emission lines of C II 9903~AA and 18535~AA to appear at effective temperature Teff~$geq$~17,500~K, those of C II 6151~AA and 6461~AA to appear at Teff~$>$~25,000~K, and those of C III 5695, 6728--44, 9701--17~AA to appear at Teff~$geq$~35,000~K (log~$g$=4.0). Emission occurs in the lines of minority species, where the photoionization-recombination mechanism provides a depopulation of the lower levels to a greater extent than the upper levels. For C II 9903 and 18535~AA, the upper levels are mainly populated from C III reservoir through the Rydberg states. For C III 5695 and 6728--44~AA, the lower levels are depopulated due to photon losses in UV transitions at 885, 1308, and 1426--28~AA which become optically thin in the photosphere. We analysed the lines of C I, C II, C III, and C IV for twenty-two O-B-type stars with temperature range between 15,800 $leq$~Teff~$leq$ 38,000~K. Abundances from emission lines of C I, C II and C III are in agreement with those from absorption ones for most of the stars. We obtained log~$epsilon_{rm C}$=8.36$pm$0.08 from twenty B-type stars, that is in line with the present-day Cosmic Abundance Standard. The obtained carbon abundances in 15~Mon and HD~42088 from emission and absorption lines are 8.27$pm$0.11 and 8.31$pm$0.11, respectively.
The copper abundances of 29 metal-poor stars are determined based on the high resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio spectra from the UVES spectragraph at the ESO VLT telescope. Our sample consists of the stars of the Galactic halo, thick- and thin-disk with [Fe/H] ranging from ~ -3.2 to ~ 0.0 dex. The non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) effects of Cu I lines are investigated, and line formation calculations are presented for an atomic model of copper including 97 terms and 1089 line transitions. We adopted the recently calculated photo-ionization cross-sections of Cu I, and investigated the hydrogen collision by comparing the theoretical and observed line profiles of our sample stars. The copper abundances are derived for both local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and NLTE based on the spectrum synthesis methods. Our results show that the NLTE effects for Cu I lines are important for metal-poor stars, in particular for very metal-poor stars, and these effects depend on the metallicity. For very metal-poor stars, the NLTE abundance correction reaches as large as ~ +0.5 dex compared to standard LTE calculations. Our results indicate that [Cu/Fe] is under-abundant for metal-poor stars (~ -0.5 dex) when the NLTE effects are included.