The conductive propagation of nuclear flames. I - Degenerate C + O and O + Ne + Mg white dwarfs
- Lick Observatory, Santa Cruz, CA (United States) Lick Observatory, Santa Cruz, CA (United States) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA (United States)
The paper determines the physical properties - speed, width, and density structure - of conductive burning fronts in degenerate carbon-oxygen (C + O) and oxygen-neon-magnesium (O + Ne + Mg) compositions for a grid of initial densities and compositions. The dependence of the physical properties of the flame on the assumed values of nuclear reaction rates, the nuclear reaction network employed, the thermal conductivity, and the choice of coordinate system are investigated. The occurrence of accretion-induced collapse of a white dwarf is found to be critically dependent on the velocity of the nuclear conductive burning front and the growth rate of hydrodynamic instabilities. Treating the expanding area of the turbulent burning region as a fractal whose tile size is identical to the minimum unstable Rayleigh-Taylor wavelength, it is found, for all reasonable values of the fractal dimension, that for initial C + O or O + Ne + Mg densities above about 9 x 10 exp 9 g/cu cm the white dwarf should collapse to a neutron star. 97 refs.
- OSTI ID:
- 6991255
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal; (United States), Vol. 396:2; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Conditions for accretion-induced collapse of white dwarfs
PROPERTIES OF CARBON–OXYGEN WHITE DWARFS FROM MONTE CARLO STELLAR MODELS
Related Subjects
GENERAL PHYSICS
WHITE DWARF STARS
STAR BURNING
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
FRACTALS
GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE
HEAT TRANSFER
NEUTRON STARS
NUCLEAR REACTION KINETICS
RADIATION TRANSPORT
STAR ACCRETION
STAR EVOLUTION
SUPERNOVAE
DWARF STARS
ENERGY TRANSFER
ERUPTIVE VARIABLE STARS
KINETICS
REACTION KINETICS
STARS
VARIABLE STARS
661300* - Other Aspects of Physical Science- (1992-)