The transition between the Main Sequence and the Red Giant Branch in low mass stars is powered by the onset of CNO burning, whose bottleneck is 14N(p, ?) 15O. The LUNA collaboration has recently improved the low energy measurements of the cross section of this key reaction. We analyse the impact of the revised reaction rate on the estimate of the Globular Cluster ages, as derived from the turnoff luminosity. We found that the age of the oldest Globular Clusters should be increased by about 0.7-1 Gyr with respect to the current estimates.

The bottleneck of CNO burning and the age of Globular Clusters

Vomiero;
2004

Abstract

The transition between the Main Sequence and the Red Giant Branch in low mass stars is powered by the onset of CNO burning, whose bottleneck is 14N(p, ?) 15O. The LUNA collaboration has recently improved the low energy measurements of the cross section of this key reaction. We analyse the impact of the revised reaction rate on the estimate of the Globular Cluster ages, as derived from the turnoff luminosity. We found that the age of the oldest Globular Clusters should be increased by about 0.7-1 Gyr with respect to the current estimates.
2004
Energy generation
Globular clusters
Nucleosynthesis
Turnoff luminosity
Diffusion
Extrapolation
Galaxies
Irradiation
Mathematical models
Space research
Thermonuclear reactions
Astrophysics
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14243/20195
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