Chemical mixing by turbulent convection in the overshooting region below the convective envelope of RGB stars

TL;DR

This study uses a turbulent convection model to explore how chemical mixing in the overshooting region affects the formation and extension of blue loops in intermediate-mass RGB stars, revealing that diffusive mixing significantly influences stellar evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a diffusive mixing model based on TCM to analyze its impact on blue loop extension, improving understanding of stellar evolution in RGB stars.

Findings

Diffusive mixing extends blue loop length compared to classical models.

Blue loop extension is sensitive to parameters $C_{X}$ and $\alpha_{TCM}$.

Models show longer blue loops and prolonged blue phase in HR diagram.

Abstract

Based on the turbulent convection model (TCM), we investigate chemical mixing in the bottom overshooting region of the convective envelope of intermediate-mass stars, focusing on its influence on the formation and extension of blue loops in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. A diffusive mixing model is adopted during the Red Giant Branch (RGB) phase. The properties of the blue loop are changed by modification of the element profiles above the H-burning shell, which results from the incomplete mixing in the bottom overshooting region when stellar model evolves up along the RGB. Such modification of the element profiles will lead to an increase of the opacity in the region just above the H-burning shell and a decrease of the opacity in the outer homogeneous convection zone, which will result in a quick decrease of the H-shell nuclear luminosity $L_{H}$ when the stellar model evolves from the RGB tip to its bottom and, finally, a much weaker and smaller convection zone will be obtained in the stellar envelope. This helps to form a longer blue loop. The extension of the blue loop is very sensitive to the parameters $(C_{X}$ and $\alpha_{TCM})$ of the diffusive mixing model and of the TCM. The results mainly show that: 1) comparing to the results of the classical model with the mixing-length theory, the lengths of the obtained blue loops with different combinations of the values of $C_{X}$ and $\alpha_{TCM}$ are all increased and the length of the blue loop increases with the values of parameters $C_{X}$ and $\alpha_{TCM}$; 2) the diffusive mixing model can significantly extend the time of stellar models lingering on the blue side of the HR diagram, even though the length of the blue loop for the 7$M_{\odot}$ star has a less prominent difference between the classical and diffusive mixing model;