Author
Frank Timmes
Bio: Frank Timmes is an academic researcher from University of California, Santa Cruz. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supernova & White dwarf. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 40 publications receiving 4602 citations.
Topics: Supernova, White dwarf, Nucleosynthesis, Metallicity, Stellar evolution
Papers
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TL;DR: The Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) project as discussed by the authors provides a one-dimensional stellar evolution module, MESA Star, which can model the evolution of giant planets down to masses as low as one-tenth that of Jupiter.
Abstract: We substantially update the capabilities of the open source software package Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA), and its one-dimensional stellar evolution module, MESA Star. Improvements in MESA Star's ability to model the evolution of giant planets now extends its applicability down to masses as low as one-tenth that of Jupiter. The dramatic improvement in asteroseismology enabled by the space-based Kepler and CoRoT missions motivates our full coupling of the ADIPLS adiabatic pulsation code with MESA Star. This also motivates a numerical recasting of the Ledoux criterion that is more easily implemented when many nuclei are present at non-negligible abundances. This impacts the way in which MESA Star calculates semi-convective and thermohaline mixing. We exhibit the evolution of 3-8 Msun stars through the end of core He burning, the onset of He thermal pulses, and arrival on the white dwarf cooling sequence. We implement diffusion of angular momentum and chemical abundances that enable calculations of rotating-star models, which we compare thoroughly with earlier work. We introduce a new treatment of radiation-dominated envelopes that allows the uninterrupted evolution of massive stars to core collapse. This enables the generation of new sets of supernovae, long gamma-ray burst, and pair-instability progenitor models. We substantially modify the way in which MESA Star solves the fully coupled stellar structure and composition equations, and we show how this has improved MESA's performance scaling on multi-core processors. Updates to the modules for equation of state, opacity, nuclear reaction rates, and atmospheric boundary conditions are also provided. We describe the MESA Software Development Kit (SDK) that packages all the required components needed to form a unified and maintained build environment for MESA. [Abridged]
2,467 citations
01 Oct 2010
TL;DR: FLASH as discussed by the authors is a new generation simulation code, which solves the fully compressible, reactive hydrodynamic equations and allows for the use of adaptive mesh refinement, and also contains state-of-the-art modules for the equations of state and thermonuclear reaction networks.
Abstract: We report on the completion of the first version of a new-generation simulation code, FLASH. The FLASH code solves the fully compressible, reactive hydrodynamic equations and allows for the use of adaptive mesh refinement. It also contains state-of-the-art modules for the equations of state and thermonuclear reaction networks. The FLASH code was developed to study the problems of nuclear flashes on the surfaces of neutron stars and white dwarfs, as well as in the interior of white dwarfs. We expect, however, that the FLASH code will be useful for solving a wide variety of other problems. This first version of the code has been subjected to a large variety of test cases and is currently being used for production simulations of X-ray bursts, Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities, and thermonuclear flame fronts. The FLASH code is portable and already runs on a wide variety of massively parallel machines, including some of the largest machines now extant.
1,549 citations
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University of Washington1, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign2, Yale University3, Los Alamos National Laboratory4, Duke University5, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill6, California Institute of Technology7, University of Texas at El Paso8, University of Arizona9, University of California, Santa Cruz10, University of Texas at Austin11, Ohio State University12, Clemson University13
TL;DR: A review of low energy nuclear experiments and theory, stellar modeling over a wide range of mass and composition, and abundance studies of many hundreds of stars can be found in this paper.
Abstract: Forty years ago Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler, and Hoyle combined what we would now call fragmentary evidence from nuclear physics, stellar evolution and the abundances of elements and isotopes in the solar system as well as a few stars into a synthesis of remarkable ingenuity. Their review provided a foundation for forty years of research in all of the aspects of low energy nuclear experiments and theory, stellar modeling over a wide range of mass and composition, and abundance studies of many hundreds of stars, many of which have shown distinct evidence of the processes suggested by B2FH. In this review we summarize progress in each of these fields with emphasis on the most recent developments.
498 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the transition from super-AGB star to massive star was studied and it was shown that a propagating neon-oxygen burning shell is common to both the most massive electron capture supernova (EC-SN) progenitors and the lowest mass iron-core collapse supernova progensitors.
Abstract: The stellar mass range 8
174 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the speeds of flame fronts that propagate inward into degenerate and semidegenerate cores of carbon and oxygen (CO) and neon-oxy (NeOMg) white dwarfs are determined.
Abstract: We determine the speeds, and many other physical properties, of flame fronts that propagate inward into degenerate and semidegenerate cores of carbon and oxygen (CO) and neon and oxygen (NeOMg) white dwarfs when such flames are bounded on their exterior by a convective region. Combustion in such fronts, per se, is incomplete, with only a small part of the initial mass function burned. A condition of balanced power is set up in the star where the rate of energy emitted as neutrinos from the convective region equals the power available from the unburned fuel that crosses the burning front. The propagation of the burning front itself is in turn limited by the temperature at the base of the convective shell, while cannot greatly exceed the adiabatic value. Solving for consistency between these two conditions gives a unique speed for the flame. Typical values for CO white dwarfs are a few hundredths of a centimeter per second. Flames in NeOMg mixtures are slower. Tables are presented in a form that can easily be implemented in stellar evolution codes and yield the rate at which the convective shell advances into the interior. Combining these velocities with the local equations for stellar structure, we find a minimum density for each gravitational potential below with the local equations for stellar structure, we find a minimum density for each gravitational potential below which the flame cannot propagate, and must die. Although detailed stellar models will have to be constructed to reslove some issues conclusively, our results that a CO white dwarf inginted at its edge will not burn carbon all the way to its center unless the mass of the white dwarf exceeds 0.8 solar mass. On the other hand, it is difficult to ignite carbon burning by compression alone anywhere in a white dwarf whose mass does not exceed 1.0 solar mass. Thus, compressionally ignited shell carbon burning in an accerting CO dwarf almost certainly propagates all the way to the center of the star. Implications for neutron star formation, and Type Ia supernova models, are briefly discussed. These are also applicable to massive stars in the about 10-12 solar mass range which ignite neon burning off center.
99 citations
Cited by
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TL;DR: GADGET-2 as mentioned in this paper is a massively parallel tree-SPH code, capable of following a collisionless fluid with the N-body method, and an ideal gas by means of smoothed particle hydrodynamics.
Abstract: We discuss the cosmological simulation code GADGET-2, a new massively parallel TreeSPH code, capable of following a collisionless fluid with the N-body method, and an ideal gas by means of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). Our implementation of SPH manifestly conserves energy and entropy in regions free of dissipation, while allowing for fully adaptive smoothing lengths. Gravitational forces are computed with a hierarchical multipole expansion, which can optionally be applied in the form of a TreePM algorithm, where only short-range forces are computed with the ‘tree’ method while long-range forces are determined with Fourier techniques. Time integration is based on a quasi-symplectic scheme where long-range and short-range forces can be integrated with different time-steps. Individual and adaptive short-range time-steps may also be employed. The domain decomposition used in the parallelization algorithm is based on a space-filling curve, resulting in high flexibility and tree force errors that do not depend on the way the domains are cut. The code is efficient in terms of memory consumption and required communication bandwidth. It has been used to compute the first cosmological N-body simulation with more than 10 10 dark matter particles, reaching a homogeneous spatial dynamic range of 10 5 per dimension in a three-dimensional box. It has also been used to carry out very large cosmological SPH simulations that account for radiative cooling and star formation, reaching total particle numbers of more than 250 million. We present the algorithms used by the code and discuss their accuracy and performance using a number of test problems. GADGET-2 is publicly released to the research community. Ke yw ords: methods: numerical ‐ galaxies: interactions ‐ dark matter.
6,196 citations
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Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics1, University of Bonn2, University of California, Berkeley3, University of California, Santa Barbara4, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis5, Arizona State University6, Netherlands Institute for Space Research7, University of Wisconsin-Madison8, University of Alabama9
TL;DR: Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) as discussed by the authors can now simultaneously evolve an interacting pair of differentially rotating stars undergoing transfer and loss of mass and angular momentum, greatly enhancing the prior ability to model binary evolution.
Abstract: We substantially update the capabilities of the open-source software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). MESA can now simultaneously evolve an interacting pair of differentially rotating stars undergoing transfer and loss of mass and angular momentum, greatly enhancing the prior ability to model binary evolution. New MESA capabilities in fully coupled calculation of nuclear networks with hundreds of isotopes now allow MESA to accurately simulate advanced burning stages needed to construct supernova progenitor models. Implicit hydrodynamics with shocks can now be treated with MESA, enabling modeling of the entire massive star lifecycle, from pre-main sequence evolution to the onset of core collapse and nucleosynthesis from the resulting explosion. Coupling of the GYRE non-adiabatic pulsation instrument with MESA allows for new explorations of the instability strips for massive stars while also accelerating the astrophysical use of asteroseismology data. We improve treatment of mass accretion, giving more accurate and robust near-surface profiles. A new MESA capability to calculate weak reaction rates "on-the-fly" from input nuclear data allows better simulation of accretion induced collapse of massive white dwarfs and the fate of some massive stars. We discuss the ongoing challenge of chemical diffusion in the strongly coupled plasma regime, and exhibit improvements in MESA that now allow for the simulation of radiative levitation of heavy elements in hot stars. We close by noting that the MESA software infrastructure provides bit-for-bit consistency for all results across all the supported platforms, a profound enabling capability for accelerating MESA's development.
2,166 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the current understanding of the lives and deaths of massive stars, with special attention to the relevant nuclear and stellar physics, and focused on their post-helium-burning evolution.
Abstract: amount of energy, a tiny fraction of which is sufficient to explode the star as a supernova. The authors examine our current understanding of the lives and deaths of massive stars, with special attention to the relevant nuclear and stellar physics. Emphasis is placed upon their post-helium-burning evolution. Current views regarding the supernova explosion mechanism are reviewed, and the hydrodynamics of supernova shock propagation and ‘‘fallback’’ is discussed. The calculated neutron star masses, supernova light curves, and spectra from these model stars are shown to be consistent with observations. During all phases, particular attention is paid to the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements. Such stars are capable of producing, with few exceptions, the isotopes between mass 16 and 88 as well as a large fraction of still heavier elements made by the r and p processes.
1,981 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, a new N-body and hydrodynamical code, called RAMSES, is presented, which is designed to study structure formation in the universe with high spatial resolution.
Abstract: A new N-body and hydrodynamical code, called RAMSES, is presented. It has been designed to study structure formation in the universe with high spatial resolution. The code is based on Adaptive Mesh Renement (AMR) technique, with a tree-based data structure allowing recursive grid renements on a cell-by-cell basis. The N-body solver is very similar to the one developed for the ART code (Kravtsov et al. 1997), with minor dierences in the exact implementation. The hydrodynamical solver is based on a second-order Godunov method, a modern shock-capturing scheme known to compute accurately the thermal history of the fluid component. The accuracy of the code is carefully estimated using various test cases, from pure gas dynamical tests to cosmological ones. The specic renement strategy used in cosmological simulations is described, and potential spurious eects associated with shock waves propagation in the resulting AMR grid are discussed and found to be negligible. Results obtained in a large N-body and hydrodynamical simulation of structure formation in a low density CDM universe are reported, with 256 3 particles and 4:1 10 7 cells in the AMR grid, reaching a formal resolution of 8192 3 .A convergence analysis of dierent quantities, such as dark matter density power spectrum, gas pressure power spectrum and individual haloe temperature proles, shows that numerical results are converging down to the actual resolution limit of the code, and are well reproduced by recent analytical predictions in the framework of the halo model.
1,885 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, a set of models for solar metallicity, where the effects of rotation are accounted for in a homogeneous way, is presented, and a grid of 48 different stellar evolutionary tracks, both rotating and non-rotating, at Z ǫ = 0.014, spanning a wide mass range from 0.8 to 120 m ⊙.
Abstract: Aims. Many topical astrophysical research areas, such as the properties of planet host stars, the nature of the progenitors of different types of supernovae and gamma ray bursts, and the evolution of galaxies, require complete and homogeneous sets of stellar models at different metallicities in order to be studied during the whole of cosmic history. We present here a first set of models for solar metallicity, where the effects of rotation are accounted for in a homogeneous way.Methods. We computed a grid of 48 different stellar evolutionary tracks, both rotating and non-rotating, at Z = 0.014, spanning a wide mass range from 0.8 to 120 M ⊙ . For each of the stellar masses considered, electronic tables provide data for 400 stages along the evolutionary track and at each stage, a set of 43 physical data are given. These grids thus provide an extensive and detailed data basis for comparisons with the observations. The rotating models start on the zero-age main sequence (ZAMS) with a rotation rate υ ini /υ crit = 0.4. The evolution is computed until the end of the central carbon-burning phase, the early asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase, or the core helium-flash for, respectively, the massive, intermediate, and both low and very low mass stars. The initial abundances are those deduced by Asplund and collaborators, which best fit the observed abundances of massive stars in the solar neighbourhood. We update both the opacities and nuclear reaction rates, and introduce new prescriptions for the mass-loss rates as stars approach the Eddington and/or the critical velocity. We account for both atomic diffusion and magnetic braking in our low-mass star models.Results. The present rotating models provide a good description of the average evolution of non-interacting stars. In particular, they reproduce the observed main-sequence width, the positions of the red giant and supergiant stars in the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram, the observed surface compositions and rotational velocities. Very interestingly, the enhancement of the mass loss during the red-supergiant stage, when the luminosity becomes supra-Eddington in some outer layers, help models above 15−20 M ⊙ to lose a significant part of their hydrogen envelope and evolve back into the blue part of the HR diagram. This result has interesting consequences for the blue to red supergiant ratio, the minimum mass for stars to become Wolf-Rayet stars, and the maximum initial mass of stars that explode as type II−P supernovae.
1,654 citations