TY - JOUR
T1 - A Concise Treatise on Converting Stellar Mass Fractions to Abundances to Molar Ratios
AU - Hinkel, Natalie R.
AU - Young, Patrick A.
AU - Wheeler, Caleb H.
N1 - Funding Information:
NRH acknowledges NASA support from grant #20-XRP20_2-0125. She would also like to thank Zack Maas for his help troubleshooting the equations, Christy Till for her useful feedback, Jake Clark for his input, as well as Tatertot and Lasagna for their support. All of the authors would like to thank Joe Schulze and Wendy Panero for their very thorough and helpful comments on the paper. The research shown here acknowledges use of the Hypatia Catalog Database, an online compilation of stellar abundance data as described in Hinkel et al. () that was supported by NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination network and the Vanderbilt Initiative in Data-Intensive Astrophysics (VIDA). The results reported herein benefited from collaborations and/or information exchange within NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination network sponsored by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Funding Information:
NRH acknowledges NASA support from grant #20-XRP20_2-0125. She would also like to thank Zack Maas for his help troubleshooting the equations, Christy Till for her useful feedback, Jake Clark for his input, as well as Tatertot and Lasagna for their support. All of the authors would like to thank Joe Schulze and Wendy Panero for their very thorough and helpful comments on the paper. The research shown here acknowledges use of the Hypatia Catalog Database, an online compilation of stellar abundance data as described in Hinkel et al. (2014) that was supported by NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination network and the Vanderbilt Initiative in Data-Intensive Astrophysics (VIDA). The results reported herein benefited from collaborations and/or information exchange within NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination network sponsored by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2022/12/1
Y1 - 2022/12/1
N2 - Understanding stellar composition is fundamental not only to our comprehension of the Galaxy, especially chemical evolution, but it can also shed light on the interior structure and mineralogy of exoplanets, which are formed from the same material as their host stars. Unfortunately, the underlying mathematics describing stellar mass fractions and stellar elemental abundances is difficult to parse, is fragmented across the literature, and contains vexing omissions that makes any calculation far from trivial, especially for nonexperts. In this treatise, we present a clear mathematical formalism and clarification of inherent assumptions and normalizations within stellar composition measurements, which facilitates the conversion from stellar mass fractions to elemental abundances to molar ratios, including error propagation. We also provide an example case study of HIP 544 to further illustrate the provided equations. Given the important chemical association between stars, as well as the interdisciplinary relationship between stars and their planets, it is vital that stellar mass fractions and abundance data be more transparent and accessible to people within different subfields and scientific disciplines.
AB - Understanding stellar composition is fundamental not only to our comprehension of the Galaxy, especially chemical evolution, but it can also shed light on the interior structure and mineralogy of exoplanets, which are formed from the same material as their host stars. Unfortunately, the underlying mathematics describing stellar mass fractions and stellar elemental abundances is difficult to parse, is fragmented across the literature, and contains vexing omissions that makes any calculation far from trivial, especially for nonexperts. In this treatise, we present a clear mathematical formalism and clarification of inherent assumptions and normalizations within stellar composition measurements, which facilitates the conversion from stellar mass fractions to elemental abundances to molar ratios, including error propagation. We also provide an example case study of HIP 544 to further illustrate the provided equations. Given the important chemical association between stars, as well as the interdisciplinary relationship between stars and their planets, it is vital that stellar mass fractions and abundance data be more transparent and accessible to people within different subfields and scientific disciplines.
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-3881/ac9bfa
DO - 10.3847/1538-3881/ac9bfa
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85142501274
SN - 0004-6256
VL - 164
JO - Astronomical Journal
JF - Astronomical Journal
IS - 6
M1 - 256
ER -