3D simulations of convective shell Neon-burning in a massive star

TL;DR

This study uses 3D hydrodynamics simulations to analyze convection in a neon-burning zone of a massive star, revealing how resolution and energy boosting affect convective behavior and mixing.

Contribution

It provides detailed 3D simulation data of neon-shell convection, highlighting resolution requirements and the impact of nuclear energy boosting on convective mixing.

Findings

Bulk convective behavior is captured at moderate resolution (256^3).

Higher resolution is needed to resolve convective boundary details.

Low boosting factors result in well-mixed convective zones.

Abstract

The treatment of convection remains a major weakness in the modelling of stellar evolution with one-dimensional (1D) codes. The ever increasing computing power makes now possible to simulate in 3D part of a star for a fraction of its life, allowing us to study the full complexity of convective zones with hydrodynamics codes. Here, we performed state-of-the-art hydrodynamics simulations of turbulence in a neon-burning convective zone, during the late stage of the life of a massive star. We produced a set of simulations varying the resolution of the computing domain (from 1283 to 10243 cells) and the efficiency of the nuclear reactions (by boosting the energy generation rate from nominal to a factor of 1000). We analysed our results by the mean of Fourier transform of the velocity field, and mean-field decomposition of the various transport equations. Our results are in line with previous studies, showing that the behaviour of the bulk of the convective zone is already well captured at a relatively low resolution (2563), while the details of the convective boundaries require higher resolutions. The different boosting factors used show how various quantities (velocity, buoyancy, abundances, abundance variances) depend on the energy generation rate. We found that for low boosting factors, convective zones are well mixed, validating the approach usually used in 1D stellar evolution codes. However, when nuclear burning and turbulent transport occur on the same timescale, a more sophisticated treatment would be needed. This is typically the case when shell mergers occur.