Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. potassium c ESO 2019 June 21, 2019 Non-LTE analysis of K I in late-type stars Henrique Reggiani1; 2, Anish M. Amarsi2, Karin Lind2; 3, Paul S. Barklem4, Oleg Zatsarinny5, Klaus Bartschat5, Dmitry V. Fursa6, Igor Bray6, Lorenzo Spina7, and Jorge Meléndez1 1 Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, IAG, Departamento de Astronomia, Rua do Matão 1226, Cidade Universitária, 05508-900, SP, Brazil. e-mail:
[email protected] 2 Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Konigstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. 3 Observational Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. 4 Theoretical Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. 5 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, 50311, USA. e-mail:
[email protected] 6 Curtin Institute for Computation and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Kent Street, Bentley, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia 7 Monash Centre for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia. 29/01/2019 ABSTRACT Context. Older models of Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) predict [K/Fe] ratios as much as 1 dex lower than those inferred from stellar observations. Abundances of potassium are mainly based on analyses of the 7698 Å resonance line, and the discrepancy between GCE models and observations is in part caused by the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) in spectroscopic analyses. Aims. We study the statistical equilibrium of K i, focusing on the non-LTE effects on the 7698 Å line.