H-He Shell Interactions and Nucleosynthesis in Massive Population III Stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates the mixing and nucleosynthesis processes at the hydrogen-helium interface in massive Population III stars through simulations, revealing frequent interactions and their nucleosynthetic outcomes, and reports progress in hydrodynamic modeling.

Contribution

It provides a systematic study of H-He interactions in massive Pop III stars and advances hydrodynamic simulation techniques for these phenomena.

Findings

H-He interactions occur in most simulated cases

Nucleosynthesis in H-He interactions is demonstrated in an 80 solar mass star

Progress in simulating double convection zones with hydrodynamics code

Abstract

We report on our ongoing investigation into the nucleosynthetic and hydrodynamic nature of mixing at the interface between the H- and He-convection zones in massive Pop III stars. Studying a grid of 26 1D stellar evolution simulations with different mixing assumptions, we find that H-He interactions occur in 23/26 cases. We demonstrate the nucleosynthesis expected in a H-He interaction in an 80M$_\odot$. Finally, we describe our progress in simulating a Pop III double convection zone in the PPMStar hydrodynamics code.