[mesa-users] The Cepheid phase

[Earl Bellinger]

Hello everybody,

In Dziembowski's 2012 paper [1] the claim is made that:

> "BaSTI (Pietrinferni et al. 2006) models at M = 4 and 5 do not reach
> the instability strip [in the helium burning phase] but the maximum
> values of L in this evolutionary phase are in a good agreement with
> the relation given by Eq. (2). Similar conclusion was reached by
> Smolec (private communication), who used public domain code MESA
> (Paxton et al. 2011). Apparently, new evolutionary codes do not
> describe well the Cepheid phase."

Can anyone corroborate/evaluate this claim for me please? That is: is
MESA suitable for investigating Cepheid stars? If not, why not?

For example, can a theoretical Cepheid Period-Luminosity relation be
derived using MESA plus a pulsation code (ADIPLS/GYRE/etc)?

Thanks for any insights.

[1] http://acta.astrouw.edu.pl/Vol62/n4/pdf/pap_62_4_1.pdf

Best regards,
Earl Bellinger
Stellar Ages & Galactic Evolution Group
Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung