Shell mergers in the late stages of massive star evolution: new insight from 3D hydrodynamic simulations

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Rizzuti, Federico, Hirschi, Raphael, Varma, Vishnu, Arnett, William David, Georgy, Cyril, Meakin, Casey, Mocák, Miroslav, Murphy, Alexander St. John, Rauscher, Thomas
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Rizzuti, Federico
Hirschi, Raphael
Varma, Vishnu
Arnett, William David
Georgy, Cyril
Meakin, Casey
Mocák, Miroslav
Murphy, Alexander St. John
Rauscher, Thomas
author_facet Rizzuti, Federico
Hirschi, Raphael
Varma, Vishnu
Arnett, William David
Georgy, Cyril
Meakin, Casey
Mocák, Miroslav
Murphy, Alexander St. John
Rauscher, Thomas
contents One-dimensional (1D) stellar evolution models are widely used across various astrophysical fields, however they are still dominated by important uncertainties that deeply affect their predictive power. Among those, the merging of independent convective regions is a poorly understood phenomenon predicted by some 1D models but whose occurrence and impact in real stars remain very uncertain. Being an intrinsically multi-D phenomenon, it is challenging to predict the exact behaviour of shell mergers with 1D models. In this work, we conduct a detailed investigation of a multiple shell merging event in a 20 M$_\odot$ star using 3D hydrodynamic simulations. Making use of the active tracers for composition and the nuclear network included in the 3D model, we study the merging not only from a dynamical standpoint but also considering its nucleosynthesis and energy generation. Our simulations confirm the occurrence of the merging also in 3D, but reveal significant differences from the 1D case. Specifically, we identify entrainment and the erosion of stable regions as the main mechanisms that drive the merging, we predict much faster convective velocities compared to the mixing-length-theory velocities, and observe multiple burning phases within the same merged shell, with important effects for the chemical composition of the star, which presents a strongly asymmetric (dipolar) distribution. We expect that these differences will have important effects on the final structure of massive stars and thus their final collapse dynamics and possible supernova explosion, subsequently affecting the resulting nucleosynthesis and remnant.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_15544
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Shell mergers in the late stages of massive star evolution: new insight from 3D hydrodynamic simulations
Rizzuti, Federico
Hirschi, Raphael
Varma, Vishnu
Arnett, William David
Georgy, Cyril
Meakin, Casey
Mocák, Miroslav
Murphy, Alexander St. John
Rauscher, Thomas
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
One-dimensional (1D) stellar evolution models are widely used across various astrophysical fields, however they are still dominated by important uncertainties that deeply affect their predictive power. Among those, the merging of independent convective regions is a poorly understood phenomenon predicted by some 1D models but whose occurrence and impact in real stars remain very uncertain. Being an intrinsically multi-D phenomenon, it is challenging to predict the exact behaviour of shell mergers with 1D models. In this work, we conduct a detailed investigation of a multiple shell merging event in a 20 M$_\odot$ star using 3D hydrodynamic simulations. Making use of the active tracers for composition and the nuclear network included in the 3D model, we study the merging not only from a dynamical standpoint but also considering its nucleosynthesis and energy generation. Our simulations confirm the occurrence of the merging also in 3D, but reveal significant differences from the 1D case. Specifically, we identify entrainment and the erosion of stable regions as the main mechanisms that drive the merging, we predict much faster convective velocities compared to the mixing-length-theory velocities, and observe multiple burning phases within the same merged shell, with important effects for the chemical composition of the star, which presents a strongly asymmetric (dipolar) distribution. We expect that these differences will have important effects on the final structure of massive stars and thus their final collapse dynamics and possible supernova explosion, subsequently affecting the resulting nucleosynthesis and remnant.
title Shell mergers in the late stages of massive star evolution: new insight from 3D hydrodynamic simulations
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.15544