Influence of Inelastic Collisions with Hydrogen Atoms on the Formation of Al I and Si I Lines in Stellar Spectra

Abstract

The non-LTE line formation for Al I and Si I was calculated with model atmospheres corresponding to F-G-K type stars of different metallicity. To account for inelastic collisions with H I, for the first time we applied the cross sections calculated by Belyaev et al. using model approaches within the formalism of the Born-Oppenheimer quantum theory. For Al I non-LTE leads to overionization in the line formation layers and to weakened spectral lines, in line with earlier non-LTE studies. However, in contrast to the previuos studies, our results predict smaller magnitude of the non-LTE effects for the subordinate lines. Owing to large cross sections, the ion-pair production and mutual neutralization processes Al I(nl) + H I(1s) $\leftrightarrow$ Al~II(3s^2) + H^- provide a close coupling of high-excitation Al I levels to the Al II ground state, which causes smaller deviations from the TE populations compared to the case of pure electron collisions. For three metal-poor stars, the Al abundance was determined from seven lines in different models of their formation. In LTE and in non-LTE calculations with pure electron collisions, the Al I 3961 A resonance line gives a 0.25-0.45 dex lower abundance than the mean from the subordinate lines. The difference is removed by accounting for the collisions with H I, and the rms error of the abundance from all seven lines decreases by a factor of 1.5-3 compared to LTE. We calculated the non-LTE abundance corrections for six Al I lines depending on Teff (4500-6500 K), log g (3.0-4.5), and [Fe/H] (0, -1, -2, -3). For Si I including the collisions with H I leads to TE populations in the line formation layers and to minor departures from LTE in spectral lines.