scholarly journals Magneto-gravity wave packet dynamics in strongly magnetized cores of evolved stars

2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (4) ◽  
pp. 5726-5742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shyeh Tjing Loi

ABSTRACT Magnetic fields are believed to be generated in the cores of massive main-sequence stars, and these may survive on to later stages of evolution. Observations of depressed dipole modes in red giant stars have been touted as evidence for these fields, but the predictions of existing magnetic theories have difficulty accommodating several aspects, including the need to return a fraction of wave energy from the core to the envelope, and the persistent gravity-like character of affected modes. In this work, we perform a Hamiltonian ray-tracing study investigating the dynamics of magneto-gravity waves in full spherical geometry, using realistic stellar models and magnetic field configurations. This technique applies in the limit where wavelengths are much shorter than scales of background variation. We conduct a comprehensive exploration of parameter space, examining the roles of wave frequency, spherical harmonic degree, wavevector polarization, incoming latitude, field strength, field radius, and evolutionary state. We demonstrate that even in the presence of a strong field, there exist trajectories where waves remain predominantly gravity-like in character, and these are able to undergo reflection out of the core, much like pure gravity waves. The remaining trajectories are ones where waves acquire significant Alfvén character, becoming trapped and eventually dissipated. Orientation effects, i.e. wavevector polarization and incoming latitude, are found to be crucial factors in determining the outcome (trapped versus reflected) of individual wave packets. The allowance for partial energy return from the core offers a solution to the conundrum faced by the magnetic hypothesis.

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 382-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Jouanno ◽  
Frédéric Marin ◽  
Yves du Penhoat ◽  
Jean-Marc Molines

Abstract A regional numerical model of the tropical Atlantic Ocean and observations are analyzed to investigate the intraseasonal fluctuations of the sea surface temperature at the equator in the Gulf of Guinea. Results indicate that the seasonal cooling in this region is significantly shaped by short-duration cooling events caused by wind-forced equatorial waves: mixed Rossby–gravity waves within the 12–20-day period band, inertia–gravity waves with periods below 11 days, and equatorially trapped Kelvin waves with periods between 25 and 40 days. In these different ranges of frequencies, it is shown that the wave-induced horizontal oscillations of the northern front of the mean cold tongue dominate the variations of mixed layer temperature near the equator. But the model mixed layer heat budget also shows that the equatorial waves make a significant contribution to the mixed layer heat budget through modulation of the turbulent cooling, especially above the core of the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC). The turbulent cooling variability is found to be mainly controlled by the intraseasonal modulation of the vertical shear in the upper ocean. This mechanism is maximum during periods of seasonal cooling, especially in boreal summer, when the surface South Equatorial Current is strongest and between 2°S and the equator, where the presence of the EUC provides a background vertical shear in the upper ocean. It applies for the three types of intraseasonal waves. Inertia–gravity waves also modulate the turbulent heat flux at the equator through vertical displacement of the core of the EUC in response to equatorial divergence and convergence.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Stephan ◽  
Alexis Mariaccia

<p>How convection couples to mesoscale vertical motion and what determines these motions is poorly understood. We diagnose profiles of area-averaged mesoscale divergence from measurements of horizontal winds collected by an extensive upper-air sounding network of a recent campaign over the western tropical North Atlantic, the Elucidating the Role of Clouds-Circulation Coupling in Climate (EUREC<sup>4</sup>A) campaign. Observed area-averaged divergence amplitudes scale approximately inversely with area equivalent radius. This functional dependence is also confirmed in reanalysis data and a global freely-evolving simulation run at 2.5 km horizontal resolution. Based on the numerical data it is demonstrated that the energy spectra of inertia gravity waves can explain the scaling of divergence amplitudes with area. At individual times, however, few waves can dominate the region. Nearly monochromatic tropospheric waves are diagnosed in the soundings by means of an optimized hodograph analysis. For one day, results suggest that an individual wave directly modulated the satellite observed cloud pattern. However, because such immediate wave impacts are rare, the systematic modulation of vertical motion due to inertia-gravity waves may be more relevant as a convection-modulating factor. We propose an analytic relationship between energy spectra and divergence amplitudes, which, if confirmed by future studies, could be used to design better external forcing methods for regional models.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 496 (3) ◽  
pp. 3829-3840
Author(s):  
Shyeh Tjing Loi

ABSTRACT When a star evolves into a red giant, the enhanced coupling between core-based gravity modes and envelope-based pressure modes forms mixed modes, allowing its deep interior to be probed by asteroseismology. The ability to obtain information about stellar interiors is important for constraining theories of stellar structure and evolution, for which the origin of various discrepancies between prediction and observation is still under debate. Ongoing speculation surrounds the possibility that some red giant stars may harbour strong (dynamically significant) magnetic fields in their cores, but interpretation of the observational data remains controversial. In part, this is tied to shortfalls in our understanding of the effects of strong fields on the seismic properties of gravity modes, which lies beyond the regime of standard perturbative methods. Here, we seek to investigate the effect of a strong magnetic field on the asymptotic period spacings of gravity modes. We use a Hamiltonian ray approach to measure the volume of phase space occupied by mode-forming rays, this being roughly proportional to the average density of modes (number of modes per unit frequency interval). A strong field appears to systematically increase this by about 10 per cent, which predicts a ∼10 per cent smaller period spacing. Evidence of near integrability in the ray dynamics hints that the gravity-mode spectrum may still exhibit pseudo-regularities under a strong field.


1994 ◽  
Vol 146 ◽  
pp. 71-78
Author(s):  
Peter Thejll

It is the intention of this review to explain what white dwarfs are and why it is interesting to study them, and why the H+2molecule is of special interest.The evolution, from start to finish, of a star of mass less than about 2 solar masses (M⊙), can roughly be summarized as follows:–A cloud of gas contracts from the interstellar medium until hydrogen ignites at the center and amain sequence(MS) star forms. H is transformed to He and the MS phase continues until H is exhausted in the stellar core.–H continues burning in a shell outside the He core while the core contracts. He “ashes” are added to the core, and ared giantstar is formed as the envelope expands. The star evolves up the Red Giant Branch (RGB) (i.e. it becomes more and more luminous and the surface cools).–Towards the end of the RGB phase, mass-loss from the upper layers increases until helium to carbon burning in the core ignites suddenly under degenerate conditions – this is called theHelium Flash(HF). The HF terminates the RGB evolution, and therefore also the mass-loss and the growth of the stellar core.–The star readjusts its structure and the He-core burns steadily on thehorizontal branch(HB) (a phase of nearly-constant luminosity) until fuel is exhausted in the He-core.–Then the C/O core contracts anew and the expansion of the envelope, and the growth of the core, during He-shell burning, mimics RGB evolution but relatively little mass is added to the core this time.–The second ascent of the giant branch (the so-called Asymptotic Giant Branch, or AGB) continues with increased mass loss towards the end–Rapid detachment of a considerable fraction of the remaining envelope and the hot core takes place, sometimes observable as thePlanetary Nebulae(PN) phase.–The PN is dispersed as the core contracts to a white dwarf (WD).–The WD cools for a long time, as internal kinetic energy and latent heat is released.


2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 155-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Angelou ◽  
J. Lattanzio

AbstractRecent work has proposed that a merger event between a red-giant and a He white dwarf may be responsible for the production of R stars (Izzard, Jeffery & Lattanzio 2007). We investigate the proposed evolution and nucleosynthesis of such a model. We simulate the hypothesized late ignition of the core flash by increasing neutrino losses until ignition occurs sufficiently far from the centre that the subsequent evolution produces carbon dredge-up to the extent that the post-flash object is a carbon star. Detailed nucleosynthesis is performed within this approximation and we show that the overall properties are broadly consistent with the observations. Details will depend on the dynamics of the merger event.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-372
Author(s):  
Claudia Christine Stephan ◽  
Alexis Mariaccia

Abstract. How convection couples to mesoscale vertical motion and what determines these motions is poorly understood. This study diagnoses profiles of area-averaged mesoscale divergence from measurements of horizontal winds collected by an extensive upper-air sounding network of a recent campaign over the western tropical North Atlantic, the Elucidating the Role of Clouds-Circulation Coupling in Climate (EUREC4A) campaign. Observed area-averaged divergence amplitudes scale approximately inversely with area-equivalent radius. This functional dependence is also confirmed in reanalysis data and a global, freely evolving simulation run at 2.5 km horizontal resolution. Based on the numerical data it is demonstrated that the energy spectra of inertia gravity waves can explain the scaling of divergence amplitudes with area. At individual times, however, few waves can dominate the region. Nearly monochromatic tropospheric waves are diagnosed in the soundings by means of an optimized hodograph analysis. For one day, results suggest that an individual wave directly modulated the satellite-observed cloud pattern. However, because such immediate wave impacts are rare, the systematic modulation of vertical motion due to inertia–gravity waves may be more relevant as a convection-modulating factor. The analytic relationship between energy spectra and divergence amplitudes proposed in this article, if confirmed by future studies, could be used to design better external forcing methods for regional models.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Christine Stephan ◽  
Alexis Mariaccia

Abstract. How convection couples to mesoscale vertical motion and what determines these motions is poorly understood. This study diagnoses profiles of area-averaged mesoscale divergence from measurements of horizontal winds collected by an extensive upper-air sounding network of a recent campaign over the western tropical North Atlantic, the Elucidating the Role of Clouds-Circulation Coupling in Climate (EUREC4A) campaign. Observed area-averaged divergence amplitudes scale approximately inversely with area equivalent radius. This functional dependence is also confirmed in reanalysis data and a global freely-evolving simulation run at 2.5 km horizontal resolution. Based on the numerical data it is demonstrated that the energy spectra of inertia gravity waves can explain the scaling of divergence amplitudes with area. At individual times, however, few waves can dominate the region. Nearly monochromatic tropospheric waves are diagnosed in the soundings by means of an optimized hodograph analysis. For one day, results suggest that an individual wave directly modulated the satellite-observed cloud pattern. However, because such immediate wave impacts are rare, the systematic modulation of vertical motion due to inertia-gravity waves may be more relevant as a convection-modulating factor. The analytic relationship between energy spectra and divergence amplitudes proposed in this article, if confirmed by future studies, could be used to design better external forcing methods for regional models.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (26) ◽  
pp. 14090-14102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Malakar ◽  
W. L. Pearson ◽  
M. Zohrabi ◽  
B. Kaderiya ◽  
Kanaka Raju P. ◽  
...  

We report the results of a time-resolved coincident ion momentum imaging experiment probing nuclear wave packet dynamics in the strong-field ionization and dissociation of iodomethane (CH3I).


2019 ◽  
Vol 632 ◽  
pp. A90 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Charpinet ◽  
P. Brassard ◽  
G. Fontaine ◽  
V. Van Grootel ◽  
W. Zong ◽  
...  

Context. The TESS satellite was launched in 2018 to perform high-precision photometry from space over almost the whole sky in a search for exoplanets orbiting bright stars. This instrument has opened new opportunities to study variable hot subdwarfs, white dwarfs, and related compact objects. Targets of interest include white dwarf and hot subdwarf pulsators, both carrying high potential for asteroseismology. Aims. We present the discovery and detailed asteroseismic analysis of a new g-mode hot B subdwarf (sdB) pulsator, EC 21494−7018 (TIC 278659026), monitored in TESS first sector using 120-s cadence. Methods. The TESS light curve was analyzed with standard prewhitening techniques, followed by forward modeling using our latest generation of sdB models developed for asteroseismic investigations. By simultaneously best-matching all the observed frequencies with those computed from models, we identified the pulsation modes detected and, more importantly, we determined the global parameters and structural configuration of the star. Results. The light curve analysis reveals that EC 21494−7018 is a sdB pulsator counting up to 20 frequencies associated with independent g-modes. The seismic analysis singles out an optimal model solution in full agreement with independent measurements provided by spectroscopy (atmospheric parameters derived from model atmospheres) and astrometry (distance evaluated from Gaia DR2 trigonometric parallax). Several key parameters of the star are derived. Its mass (0.391 ± 0.009 M⊙) is significantly lower than the typical mass of sdB stars and suggests that its progenitor has not undergone the He-core flash; therefore this progenitor could originate from a massive (≳2 M⊙) red giant, which is an alternative channel for the formation of sdBs. Other derived parameters include the H-rich envelope mass (0.0037 ± 0.0010 M⊙), radius (0.1694 ± 0.0081 R⊙), and luminosity (8.2 ± 1.1 L⊙). The optimal model fit has a double-layered He+H composition profile, which we interpret as an incomplete but ongoing process of gravitational settling of helium at the bottom of a thick H-rich envelope. Moreover, the derived properties of the core indicate that EC 21494−7018 has burnt ∼43% (in mass) of its central helium and possesses a relatively large mixed core (Mcore = 0.198 ± 0.010 M⊙), in line with trends already uncovered from other g-mode sdB pulsators analyzed with asteroseismology. Finally, we obtain for the first time an estimate of the amount of oxygen (in mass; X(O)core = 0.16+0.13−0.05) produced at this stage of evolution by an helium-burning core. This result, along with the core-size estimate, is an interesting constraint that may help to narrow down the still uncertain 12C(α, γ)16O nuclear reaction rate.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document