Related papers: The convective Urca process
We derive a new formalism for convective motions involving two radial flows. This formalism provides a framework for convective models that guarantees consistency for the chemistry and the energy budget in the flows, allows time-dependence…
Type Ia supernovae are bright thermonuclear explosions that are important to numerous areas of astronomy. However, the origins of these events are poorly understood. One proposed setting is that of a near Chandrasekhar mass white dwarf that…
A proposed setting for thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae is a white dwarf that has gained mass from a companion to the point of carbon ignition in the core. In the early stages of carbon burning, called the simmering phase, energy released…
Type Ia supernovae are bright thermonuclear explosions of one or more white dwarf stars. The exact origin and explosion mechanism for these supernovae is still poorly understood. In the near-Chandrasekhar mass progenitor model, a simmering…
I have repeatedly grappled with the question of how the convective Urca process affects stellar evolution, in particular during the high-density convective carbon burning that can occur in near-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs. This…
A proposed setting for thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae is a white dwarf that has gained mass from a companion to the point of carbon ignition in the core. There is a simmering phase in the early stages of burning that involves the…
Consideration of the role of the convective flux in the thermodymics of the convective Urca neutrino loss process in degenerate, convective, quasi-static, carbon-burning cores shows that the convective Urca process slows down the convective…
When carbon is ignited off-centre in a CO core of a super-AGB star, its burning in a convective shell tends to propagate to the centre. Whether the C flame will actually be able to reach the centre depends on the efficiency of extra mixing…
First results of simulations are presented which compute the dynamical evolution of a Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf, consisting of equal amounts of carbon and oxygen, from the onset of violent thermonuclear burning, by means of a new…
The thermonuclear runaway that culminates in the explosion of a Chandrasekhar mass white dwarf as a Type Ia supernova begins centuries before the star actually explodes. Here, using a 3D anelastic code, we examine numerically the convective…
The onset of the thermonuclear runaway in a Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf, leading to the explosion as a type Ia supernova, is studied with hydrodynamical simulations. We investigate the evolution of temperature fluctuations (``bubbles'')…
There is wide agreement that Type Ia supernovae (used as standard candles for cosmology) are associated with the thermonuclear explosions of white dwarf stars. The nuclear runaway that leads to the explosion could start in a white dwarf…
Pulsating white dwarfs provide constraints to the evolution of progenitor stars. We revise He-burning stellar models, with particular attention to core convection and to its connection with the nuclear reactions powering energy generation…
We investigate crystallization-driven convection in carbon-oxygen white dwarfs. We present a version of the mixing length theory (MLT) that self-consistently includes the effects of thermal diffusion and composition gradients, and provides…
We analyze temporal evolution of the number of accreting white dwarfs with shell hydrogen burning in semidetached and detached binaries. We consider a stellar system in which star formation lasts for 10 Gyr with a constant rate, as well as…
We investigate heat transport associated with compositionally-driven convection driven by crystallization at the ocean-crust interface in accreting neutron stars, or growth of the solid core in cooling white dwarfs. We study the effect of…
The neutron excess at the time of explosion provides a powerful discriminant among models of Type Ia supernovae. Recent calculations of the carbon simmering phase in single degenerate progenitors have disagreed about the final neutron…
The flame born in the deep interior of a white dwarf that becomes a Type Ia supernova is subject to several instabilities. We briefly review these instabilities and the corresponding flame acceleration. We discuss the conditions necessary…
When carbon is ignited off-center in a CO core of a super-AGB star, its burning in a convective shell tends to propagate to the center. Whether the C flame will actually be able to reach the center depends on the efficiency of extra mixing…
A recent study by Yoon & Langer (2004a) indicated that the inner cores of rapidly accreting (Mdot > 10^{-7} M_sun/yr) CO white dwarfs may rotate differentially, with a shear rate near the threshold value for the onset of the dynamical shear…