22Ne distillation and the cooling sequence of the old metal-rich open cluster NGC 6791

• Published in: Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) Vol. 686
• Main Authors: Salaris, Maurizio, Blouin, Simon, Cassisi, Santi, Luigi Bedin, R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Heidelberg EDP Sciences 05.06.2024
• Subjects: Astronomical models; Carbon; Clusters; Cooling; Distillation; Eclipsing binary stars; Luminosity; Metallicity; Neon; Oxygen; Phase separation; Space telescopes; Stellar evolution; White dwarf stars

Recent Monte Carlo plasma simulations carried out to study the phase separation of $^ Ne $ in crystallizing carbon-oxygen (CO) white dwarfs (WDs; the most abundant metal after carbon and oxygen) have shown that, under the right conditions, a distillation process that transports $^ Ne $ towards the W...