Lithium and rotation on the subgiant branch II. Theoretical analysis of observations

Abstract

Lithium abundances and rotation, determined for 120 subgiant stars in Lebre et al. (1999) are analyzed. To this purpose, the evolutionary status of the sample as well as the individual masses have been determined using the HIPPARCOS trigonometric parallax measurements to locate very precisely our sample stars in the HR diagram. We look at the distributions of A(Li) and Vsini with mass when stars evolve from the main sequence to the subgiant branch. For most of the stars in our sample we find good agreement with the dilution predictions. However, the more massive cool stars with upper limits of Li abundances show a significant discrepancy with the theoretical predictions, even if the Non-LTE effects are taken into account. For the rotation behaviour, our analysis confirms that low mass stars leave the main sequence with a low rotational rate, while more massive stars are slowed down only when reaching the subgiant branch. We also checked the connection between the observed rotation behaviour and the magnetic braking due to the deepening of the convective envelope. Our results shed new light on the lithium and rotation discontinuities in the evolved phase.