NUCLEAR MIXING METERS FOR CLASSICAL NOVAE

Journal Article · Sun Nov 10 04:00:00 EST 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/777/2/130· OSTI ID:22270586

Kelly, Keegan J.; Iliadis, Christian; Downen, Lori; Champagne, Art ^[1]; José, Jordi ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255 (United States)
2. Departament de Física i Enginyeria Nuclear, EUETIB, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, E-08036 Barcelona (Spain)

Classical novae are caused by mass transfer episodes from a main-sequence star onto a white dwarf via Roche lobe overflow. This material possesses angular momentum and forms an accretion disk around the white dwarf. Ultimately, a fraction of this material spirals in and piles up on the white dwarf surface under electron-degenerate conditions. The subsequently occurring thermonuclear runaway reaches hundreds of megakelvin and explosively ejects matter into the interstellar medium. The exact peak temperature strongly depends on the underlying white dwarf mass, the accreted mass and metallicity, and the initial white dwarf luminosity. Observations of elemental abundance enrichments in these classical nova events imply that the ejected matter consists not only of processed solar material from the main-sequence partner but also of material from the outer layers of the underlying white dwarf. This indicates that white dwarf and accreted matter mix prior to the thermonuclear runaway. The processes by which this mixing occurs require further investigation to be understood. In this work, we analyze elemental abundances ejected from hydrodynamic nova models in search of elemental abundance ratios that are useful indicators of the total amount of mixing. We identify the abundance ratios ΣCNO/H, Ne/H, Mg/H, Al/H, and Si/H as useful mixing meters in ONe novae. The impact of thermonuclear reaction rate uncertainties on the mixing meters is investigated using Monte Carlo post-processing network calculations with temperature-density evolutions of all mass zones computed by the hydrodynamic models. We find that the current uncertainties in the {sup 30}P(p, γ){sup 31}S rate influence the Si/H abundance ratio, but overall the mixing meters found here are robust against nuclear physics uncertainties. A comparison of our results with observations of ONe novae provides strong constraints for classical nova models.

• OSTI ID: 22270586
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 777; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ACCRETION DISKS
ASTROPHYSICS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DWARF STARS
ELECTRONS
ELEMENT ABUNDANCE
INTERSTELLAR SPACE
LIMITING VALUES
MAIN SEQUENCE STARS
MASS TRANSFER
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NOVA MODEL
NOVAE
PHOSPHORUS 30 TARGET
PROTON REACTIONS
ROCHE EQUIPOTENTIALS
STAR EVOLUTION
SULFUR 31
THERMONUCLEAR REACTIONS