Transport of angular momentum by waves in stars

TL;DR

This paper discusses the complex process of modeling angular momentum transport by waves in stars, emphasizing the importance of interactions between meridional circulation and waves, and introduces the Transform Eulerian Formalism (TEM) for accurate computation.

Contribution

It introduces the Transform Eulerian Formalism (TEM), a new method for accurately modeling wave-induced angular momentum transport in stellar evolution.

Findings

Properly accounting for wave and circulation interactions is crucial.

Many existing models only consider wave momentum flux, which is incomplete.

TEM provides a comprehensive framework for wave transport modeling.

Abstract

Transport of angular momentum is a long-standing problem in stellar physics which recently became more acute thanks to the observations of the space-borne mission \emph{Kepler}. Indeed, the need for an efficient mechanism able to explain the rotation profile of low-mass stars has been emphasized by asteroseimology and waves are among the potential candidates to do so. In this article, our objective is not to review all the literature related to the transport of angular momentum by waves but rather to emphasize the way it is to be computed in stellar models. We stress that to model wave transport of angular momentum is a non-trivial issue that requires to properly account for interactions between meridional circulation and waves. Also, while many authors only considered the effect of the wave momentum flux in the mean momentum equation, we show that this is an incomplete picture that prevents from grasping the main physics of the problem. We thus present the Transform Eulerian Formalism (TEM) which enable to properly address the problem.