3D NLTE sodium abundances in late-type stars. Abundance corrections and synthetic spectra

Neutral sodium is an important tracer of the Galactic chemical evolution, a powerful diagnostic of different stellar populations, and the subject of detailed studies of exoplanet atmospheres via transmission spectroscopy. This work aims to study and quantify the errors in stellar analyses of lines caused by the use of one-dimensional (1D) hydrostatic model atmospheres and the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). Na I We studied the line formation of nine lines in FGK dwarfs and giants via, for the first time, 3D non-LTE (NLTE) radiative transfer post-processing with the code on 3D radiation hydrodynamic stellar atmospheres from the grid spanning T_ = 4000 to 6500,K, łog g = 1.5 to 5.0, and Na I Balder Stagger eff Fe/H $=-4$ to $+0.5$. We find that the 3D NLTE abundance corrections relative to 1D LTE tend to be negative and more positive than the corresponding 1D NLTE corrections. This reflects more efficient overionisation in the steeper temperature gradient of the 3D models. The corrections are typically less severe than -0.1,dex for weak lines, but they become more extreme for saturated lines in low-gravity giants (łog g łeq 2.0), even reaching -0.7,dex. However, for the D resonance lines, the 3D NLTE corrections relative to 1D LTE become slightly positive at the lowest metallicities in our grid, typically around $+0.05$,dex at Fe/H $=-4$. We made our 3D NLTE grid, together with interpolation routines based on radial basis functions and fully connected feedforward neural networks, publicly available. This will enable more accurate determination of sodium abundances in present and forthcoming stellar spectroscopic surveys, particularly for metal-poor stars, as well as a better characterisation of the D lines in exoplanet atmospheres. Na I

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Publication Details

Journal
Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology)
Published
2026-04-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202558382/pdf
Primary Topic
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

3D NLTE sodium abundances in late-type stars. Abundance corrections and synthetic spectra

M. Racca, A. M. Amarsi, K. Lind, G. Canocchi et al.
Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology)
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
article

3D NLTE sodium abundances in late-type stars. Abundance corrections and synthetic spectra

M. Racca, A. M. Amarsi, K. Lind, G. Canocchi, E. X. Wang
article en

Abstract

Neutral sodium is an important tracer of the Galactic chemical evolution, a powerful diagnostic of different stellar populations, and the subject of detailed studies of exoplanet atmospheres via transmission spectroscopy. This work aims to study and quantify the errors in stellar analyses of lines caused by the use of one-dimensional (1D) hydrostatic model atmospheres and the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). Na I We studied the line formation of nine lines in FGK dwarfs and giants via, for the first time, 3D non-LTE (NLTE) radiative transfer post-processing with the code on 3D radiation hydrodynamic stellar atmospheres from the grid spanning T_ = 4000 to 6500,K, łog g = 1.5 to 5.0, and Na I Balder Stagger eff Fe/H $=-4$ to $+0.5$. We find that the 3D NLTE abundance corrections relative to 1D LTE tend to be negative and more positive than the corresponding 1D NLTE corrections. This reflects more efficient overionisation in the steeper temperature gradient of the 3D models. The corrections are typically less severe than -0.1,dex for weak lines, but they become more extreme for saturated lines in low-gravity giants (łog g łeq 2.0), even reaching -0.7,dex. However, for the D resonance lines, the 3D NLTE corrections relative to 1D LTE become slightly positive at the lowest metallicities in our grid, typically around $+0.05$,dex at Fe/H $=-4$. We made our 3D NLTE grid, together with interpolation routines based on radial basis functions and fully connected feedforward neural networks, publicly available. This will enable more accurate determination of sodium abundances in present and forthcoming stellar spectroscopic surveys, particularly for metal-poor stars, as well as a better characterisation of the D lines in exoplanet atmospheres. Na I

Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, European Commission, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Vetenskapsrådet, HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme
Openalex Percentile: Top 21%
Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
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