IIA researchers connect Li abundance in interstellar space to new Li-rich red giants

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have discovered hundreds of Li-rich giant stars indicating that Li is being produced in the stars and accounts for its abundance in the interstellar medium.

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The researches have also associated such Li enhancement with central He-burning stars, also known as red clump giants which opened up new vistas in the evolution of the red giant stars.

The team cracked the long-standing problem in stellar astrophysics.

The researchers followed a two-fold strategy by increasing the sample by systematically searching for high Lithium among low mass evolved stars in the Galaxy and determining the exact evolutionary phase of these high Li abundance stars.

The researchers determined the evolutionary phase of the giant-Li by analyzing relative positions of thousands of stars using their temperature and luminosity and also subjecting their independent data set to atmospheric oscillations analysis using data from Kepler Space Telescope, a NASA mission for discovering planets.

The discovery will eliminate many proposed theories such as planet engulfment or nucleosynthesis during the red giant evolution in which helium at the center is not burning.