Previous #57 Next

core convection

In the interiors of stars convection can efficiently transport mass, energy, and chemical species. Convection can also excite internal gravity waves in stars. Here an early main-sequence 25 solar mass star is simulated. The visualization shows two views, at two different times, of the vorticity magnitude in one hemisphere of a non-rotating model. The left image shows the star after evolving for 12 days, where a dipole circulation pattern characteristic of core convection is clearly visible. The right image shows the same star at a much later time of 732 days, when internal flows have developed a much larger region of convection above the Schwarzschild boundary, which is the scale traced by the bright, high vorticity inner region in the left image.

Methods: MESA 1d model; PPMstar 3d RHD