Lithium evolution from Pre-Main Sequence to the Spite plateau: an environmental solution to the cosmological lithium problem

Abstract

AbstractLithium abundance derived in metal-poor main sequence stars is about three times lower than the primordial value of the standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis prediction. This disagreement is referred to as the lithium problem. We reconsider the stellar Li evolution from the pre-main sequence to the end of main sequence phase by introducing the effects of overshooting and residual mass accretion. We show that 7Li could be significantly depleted by convective overshooting in the pre-main sequence phase and then partially restored in the stellar atmosphere by residual accretion which follows the Li depletion phase and could be regulated by EUV photo-evaporation. By considering the conventional nuclear burning and diffusion along the main sequence we can reproduce the Spite plateau for stars with initial mass m0=0.62–0.80 M⊙, and the Li declining branch for lower mass dwarfs, e.g, m0=0.57–0.60 M⊙, for a wide range of metallicities (Z=0.00001 to Z=0.0005), starting from an initial Li abundance A(Li) = 2.72.