Source of discrepancy with Hypatia catalogue uncertainties

Ascertain whether the lack of 1σ agreement between the 3D NLTE lithium abundances measured in this work and the crossmatched Hypatia catalogue values arises from underestimated uncertainties in the present analysis or from underestimated uncertainties in the Hypatia catalogue, after accounting for 3D NLTE corrections.

Background

To validate their methodology, the authors compared their 3D NLTE lithium abundances with literature values from the Hypatia catalogue for 26 crossmatched stars. They found that their abundances are generally slightly lower than Hypatia’s 1D LTE values, and that applying 3D NLTE corrections reduces but does not eliminate the offset, leaving a mean difference and similar scatter.

The comparison indicates the results are not within 1σ agreement. The authors explicitly state it is unclear whether this discrepancy is due to underestimated errors on their side or in the Hypatia catalogue, highlighting the need to identify the source of the uncertainty underestimation to properly interpret differences between datasets.