Abstract
The seismic data obtained by the CoRoT and Kepler space missions have provided inferences of the global and structural properties of thousands of red giants. When compared with stellar model predictions, these inferences can significantly improve our understanding of stellar evolution. We present a brief review of the structure and evolution of red giant stars, devoting some emphasis on the major, still open problems.
Highlights
Red giants are cool, highly luminous stars, covering a rather wide domain in mass, age, chemical composition, and evolutionary stage
An alternative approach to model the superadiabatic layers of convective envelopes is based on the computation of realistic multidimensional radiation hydrodynamics (RHD) simulations of atmospheres and convective envelopes - where convection emerges from first principles - that cover the range of effective temperatures, surface gravities, and chemical compositions typical of stars with convective outer regions
The same analysis has provided a plain evidence that the choice of RHD-calibrated T(τ) relation is more relevant than the use of a variable αMLT, in setting the effective temperature scale of the models as shown in Fig. 4: here it is shown the comparison between models based on the RHD-calibrated T(τ) relation and the T(τ) relationships by Eddington, KS66 and [34] (V81)
Summary
Highly luminous stars, covering a rather wide domain in mass, age, chemical composition, and evolutionary stage. Since the data from the first CoRoT observational runs were analysed, and solar-like oscillations were detected in several thousands of red giant stars (mainly thanks to the Kepler space mission), it has become clear that the newly available observational constraints would allow novel approaches in the study of Galactic stellar populations [1, 2]. This can have a very important impact on our vision of the Galaxy. We briefly discuss some non-canonical physical processes - usually ignored in stellar model computations - that we need to properly account for in the generation of stellar models in order to be able to properly interpret the various observational evidence
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