Why Stars Become Red Giants

Abstract

The author shows that a radiative envelope in which the Kramers opacity law holds cannot transport a luminosity larger than a critical value, and he argues that the transition to red giant structure is triggered by the star's luminosity exceeding the critical value. If the Kramers law is used for all temperatures and densities, the radius of the star diverges as the critical luminosity is approached. In real stars the radiative envelope expands as the luminosity increases until the star intersects the Hayashi track. Once on the Hayashi track, luminosities in excess of the critical luminosity can be accommodated by forcing most of the mass of the envelope into the convection zone.