The age of the Sun and the relativistic corrections in the EOS

Bonanno, A.; Schlattl, H.; Paterno`, L.

The age of the Sun and the relativistic corrections in the EOS

Authors

Bonanno, A.

Schlattl, H.

Paterno`, L.

Description

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 $0.05 - 0.08 \gi $ with respect to those obtained with the old OPAL or MHD EOS. Our best-fit value is $t_\mathrm{seis} = (4.57 \pm 0.11) \gi $ 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 $δν_{\ell,n}=ν_{\ell,n}-ν_{\ell+2,n-1}$, for spherical harmonic degrees $\ell = 0,1$ and radial order $n \gg \ell$.
4 pages, 4 figures, to appear on A&Ap