IHPCSS Poster Session

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 (made up of 2 slides and a movie)

Abstract

3D Low Mach Simulations of the Urca Process in White Dwarfs

Prior to thermonuclear explosion and resulting supernovae, white dwarfs can go through a simmering phase where stable carbon burning in the core drives convection. During this phase, the Urca process (a pair of beta decay and electron capture reactions) can alter the structure of the white dwarf. This complex process can only be studied via a full 3D simulation of the star. Since the velocity of the material in this environment is slow moving (low mach), traditional fluid codes are ineffective. MAESTROeX is designed exactly for low mach problems like this and allows for the simulation to be computed efficiently and accurately by removing unnecessary sound waves which slow conventional hydrodynamic codes. Despite this, a full 3D simulation that can resolve the motions and mechanisms is still very computationally expensive. MAESTROeX deals with this by using parallelization via a hybrid OpenMP/MPI scheme and more recently with some GPU capabilities.

The full poster can be downloaded here.