Modelling the evolution of solar-mass stars with a range of metallicities using MESA

The nuclides 1,2 H, 3,4 He, 7 Li, 7 Be, 8 B, 12,13 C, 13-15 N, 14-18 O, 17-19 F, 18-22 Ne, 22 Mg, and 24 Mg were used in the code package MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics)[Paxton] to model a one-solar-mass star with a range of metallicities, z , from 0 to 0.1. On HR diagrams of each star model’s luminosity and effective temperature from before zero-age main sequence (pre-ZAMS) to white dwarf, oscillations were noted in the horizontal branch at intervals from z = 0 to 0.0070. At z , = 0, the calculated stellar lifetime is 6.09x10 9 years. The calculated lifetime of the model stars increases to a maximum of 1.25x10 10 years at z = 0.022 and then decreases to 2.59x10 9 years at z = 0.1. A piecewise fit of the model lifetimes vs. metallicity was obtained.