AAS 241 Poster

I presented this poster at the 241st AAS meeting in Seattle. My poster is on modeling the Urca process in simmering white dwarfs using the low mach code MAESTROeX. Below you can find my abstract as well as a link to the virtual poster (called an iPoster).

Abstract

Low Mach Number Simulations of the Convective Urca Process in Type Ia Progenitors

Type Ia supernovae are extremely bright events and are extensively used as standard candles. They are invaluable to many areas of astronomy; however, there remain many open questions regarding these events. In the single-degenerate progenitor model, in which a white dwarf accretes mass from a stellar companion, there is a simmering phase of carbon burning prior to the thermonuclear runaway. During this phase, carbon burning drives convection in the interior region of the white dwarf. This enables the convective Urca process to alter the energy distribution of the white dwarf, and may extend or limit the time frame of this simmering phase. We present preliminary full 3D hydrodynamic simulations of the A=23 convective Urca process in a simmering white dwarf using the MAESTROeX low-Mach code. Further investigation of this model sheds light on the impacts of the convective Urca process on the white dwarf and resulting supernovae event. This research was supported in part by the US Department of Energy (DOE) under grant DE-FG02-87ER40317.

The full poster can be seen here.