Talk abstract details

We examine the effect of the new solar abundances on stellar
evolutionary tracks due to each of three separate causes. These are the
change in opacities due to difference in the relative abundances of
elements in the stellar mixture, the change in nuclear yield due to the
difference in abundance ratios of C, N, and O, and the revised estimate
of metallicity for a given [Fe/H] because of the lower solar
metallicity. We focus on a test star, HD43587, a CoRoT primary
solar-type target and obtain evolutionary models adopting both old and
new solar abundances. The theoretical frequencies of these models are
compared. We find that if the [Fe/H] value of the star has an
uncertainty of the order of +/-0.02, it is possible to make models at
the same position on the HR diagram with identical mass but different
chemical compositions corresponding to the two different solar
abundances adopted. Such models do not exhibit significant difference in
their frequencies despite the difference in surface chemical
composition. However, if the [Fe/H] value is known more precisely, the
models at the same position of the HR diagram must differ in mass for
the two abundances, and the frequency characteristics of these models
would be quite different. Therefore, the asteroseismic information can,
in principle, allow us to test the solar abundance values, provided the
[Fe/H] of the target star is known to a high precision.