The influence of atomic diffusion on stellar ages and chemical tagging

Understand

In the era of large stellar spectroscopic surveys, there is emphasis on deriving not only stellar abundances but also ages for millions of stars.

• In the context of Galactic archeology, stellar ages provide a direct probe of the formation history of the Galaxy.
• We use the stellar evolution code MESA to compute models with atomic diffusion--with and without radiative acceleration--and extra mixing in the surface layers.
• The extra mixing consists of both density-dependent turbulent mixing and envelope overshoot mixing.