EFFECT OF METALLICITY TO THE EVOLUTION OF LOW MASS STARS

• Main Author: Indriani, Putri
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/70893
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Stellar evolution is a process of the changing of stars with time, mainly depends on the mass of the stars, and is usually depicted on the Hertzsprung-Russel (HR) diagram. The evolution can be influenced by various parameters, one of which is metallicity which is a fraction of the abundance of elements heavier than Hydrogen and Helium, denoted by Z. Metallicity of stars represents the amount of metal content in the composition of an element of a star. With different metallicity values, the paths of stellar evolution will also be different. For low-mass stars that do not have enough temperature to produce many heavy elements, usually the metal elements they contain are obtained from remnants from previous stellar evolution. Metallicity affects stellar opacity, so a star with high metallicity will make the opacity larger and the star's temperature become lower. The HR diagram of the star with higher metallicity will shift slightly to the right, at higher luminosity and effective temperature. In addition, metallicity also affects the timescale of the star's life in the main sequence. The purpose of this Final Task is to study and analyze the influence of metallicity on the evolution of low-mass stars using MESA-Web (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics). By inserting the initial mass, metallicity, and other parameters, simulations were conducted to produce the necessary paths of stellar evolution and the results will be analyzed for various masses and metallicities. The modeling results using MESA showed the effect of metallicity on luminosity, temperature, and age of stars.