Bibcode
Villamariz, M. R.; Herrero, A.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.357, p.597-607 (2000)
Advertised on:
5
2000
Journal
Citations
34
Refereed citations
31
Description
We study the effect of microturbulence in the line formation
calculations of H and He lines, in the parameter range typical for O and
early B stars. We are specially interested in its effect on the
determination of stellar parameters: Teff, log g and
specially on the He abundance. We first analyze the behaviour of H and
He model lines between 4 000 and 5 000 Äwith microturbulence and
find that for O stars only He I lines and He Ii lambda 4686 are sensibly
affected by microturbulence, and that models with lower gravities, the
ones suitable for supergiants, are more sensitive to it. Using a test
procedure we show that the expected changes in Teff, log g
and Helium abundance due to the inclusion of microturbulence in the
analysis, are small. We analyze five stars (two late, one intermediate
and two early O stars) using microturbulence velocities of 0 and 15
kms-1 and confirm the result of the previous test. The
parameters obtained for 15 kms-1 differ from the ones at 0
kms-1 within the limits of the standard error box of our
analysis. Only later types reduce their He abundance, by 0.02 in epsilon
. Comparing with values in the literature we find that the range of our
changes agree with previous results. In some cases other effects can add
to microturbulence, and further reduce the He abundance up to 0.04. The
quality of the line fits only improves for He I lambda 4471, but not to
the extent of completely solving the so-called dilution effect.
Therefore our conclusion is that microturbulence is affecting the
derivation of stellar parameters, but its effect is comparable to the
adopted uncertainties. Thus it can reduce moderate He overabundances and
solve line fit quality differences, but it cannot explain by itself
large He overabundances in O stars. The INT is operated on the island of
La Palma by the RGO in the Spanish Obervatorio de El Roque de los
Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrof\'i sica de Canarias.