Calibration of the Alpha Centauri system - Metallicity and age

The binary system Alpha Cen A and B, with its well known parallax, its high quality orbit and the reasonable hypothesis of a common origin and age for both components, is a useful test of stellar evolution models. Evolutionary sequences are computed for 1.085 and 0.9 solar masses with different values of Z, Y and alpha (= l/Hp). Adopting luminosities and effective temperatures as derived from the observations, Z = 0.04, Y = 0.32, alpha = 1.6 and t = 5 Gyr. The Z-value derived from evolutionary sequences is very sensitive to the difference in effective temperature between the two components.