Temperature behavior of elemental abundances in the atmospheres of magnetic peculiar stars

Abstract

We analyze the temperature dependence of the abundances of the chemical elements Si, Ca, Cr, and Fe in the atmospheres of normal, metallic-line (Am), magnetic peculiar (Ap), and pulsating magnetic peculiar (roAp) stars in the range 6000–15000 K. The Cr and Fe abundances in the atmospheres of Ap stars increase rapidly as the temperature rises from 6000 to 9000–10000 K. Subsequently, the Cr abundance decreases to values that exceed the solar abundance by an order of magnitude, while the Fe abundance remains enhanced by approximately +1.0 dex compared to the solar value. The temperature dependence of the abundances of these elements in the atmospheres of normal and Am stars is similar in shape, but its maximum is several orders of magnitude lower than that observed for Ap stars. In the range 6000–9500 K, the observed temperature dependences for Ap stars are satisfactorily described in terms of element diffusion under the combined action of gravitational settling and radiative acceleration. It may well be that diffusion also takes place in the atmospheres of normal stars, but its efficiency is very low due to the presence of microturbulence. We show that the magnetic field has virtually no effect on the Cr and Fe diffusion in Ap stars in the range of effective temperatures 6000–9500 K. The Ca abundance and its variation in the atmospheres of Ap stars can also be explained in terms of the diffusion model if we assume the existence of a stellar wind with a variable moderate rate of ∼(2–4) × 10− 15 M ⊙ yr−1.