The impact of the uncertainties in the 12C(α, γ ) 16O reaction rate on the evolution of low- to intermediate-mass stars

Abstract

One of the largest uncertainties in stellar evolutionary computations is the accuracy of the considered reaction rates. The 12C(α, γ ) 16O reaction is particularly important for the study of low- and intermediate-mass stars as it determines the final C/O ratio in the core which influences the white dwarf (WD) cooling evolution. Thus, there is a need for a study of how the computations of WDs and their progenitors that are made to date may be affected by the uncertainties of the 12C(α, γ ) 16O reaction rates. In this work, we compute fully evolutionary sequences using the MESA code with initial masses in the range of 0.90 ≤ Mi/M ≤ 3.05. We consider different adopted reaction rates, obtained from the literature, as well as the extreme limits within their uncertainties. As expected, we find that previous to the core helium burning (CHB) stage, there are no changes to the evolution of the stars. However, the subsequent stages are all affected by the uncertainties of the considered reaction rate. In particular, we find differences to the convective core mass during the CHB stage which may affect pulsation properties of subdwarfs, the number of thermal pulses during the asymptotic giant branch and trends between final oxygen abundance in the core and the progenitor masses of the remnant WDs.