Re: A trinary system (G/M+A)

sigidunum@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Are you sure? Because this paper:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1993ApJ...418..457S

gives the Sun a peak luminosity of 5200 sols. That's a thermal pulse,
but there's also a sustained (tens of millions of years) period at
2300 sols.

That cite is from 1993, and may be out of date; if it is, correction
is welcome.

It may be right for the brief period surrounding the helium flash, though they're damped out. 5200 solar luminosities does sound high, but I guess it's right. The sustained lifetime of a red giant is usually a few hundred solar luminosities.

I suppose one issue is over what timescale you're talking about. After all, the helium flash releases 10^10 solar luminosities over a few seconds; the vast majority of this energy is absorbed by the intermediate layers, though, rather than being turned into visible light.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@xxxxxxxxxxx && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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