Opacities and Atomic Diffusion

Abstract

Opacity is a fundamental quantity for stellar modeling, and it plays an essential role throughout the life of stars. After gravity drives the collapse of interstellar matter into a protostar, the opacity determines how this matter is structured around the stellar core. The opacity explains how the radiation field interacts with the matter and how a major part of the energy flows through the star. It results from all the microscopic interactions of photons with atoms. Part of the momentum exchange between photons and atoms gives rise to radiative accelerations (specific to each type of atom), which are strongly involved in a second-order process: atomic diffusion. Although this process is a slow one, it can have a significant impact on stellar structure and chemical composition measurements. In this review, we discuss the way opacities are presently computed and used in numerical codes. Atomic diffusion is described, and the current status of the consideration of this process is presented.