The stellar luminosity and depth of the convective envelope vary rapidly with mass for G- and K-type main sequence stars. In order to understand how these properties influence the convective turbulence, differential rotation, and meridional circulation, we have carried out 3D dynamical simulations of the interiors of rotating main sequence stars, using the anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code. The stars in our simulations have masses of 0.5, 0.7, 0.9, and 1.1 M_sun, corresponding to spectral types K7 through G0, and rotate at the same angular speed as the sun. We identify several trends of convection zone properties with stellar mass, exhibited by the simulations. The convective velocities, temperature contrast between up- and down-flows, and meridional circulation velocities all increase with stellar luminosity. As a consequence of the trend in convective velocity, the Rossby number (at a fixed rotation rate) increases and the convective turnover timescales decrease significantly with increasing stellar mass. The 3 lowest mass cases exhibit solar-like differential rotation, in a sense that they show a maximum rotation at the equator and minimum at higher latitudes, but the 1.1 M_sun case exhibits anti-solar rotation. At low mass, the meridional circulation is multi-cellular and aligned with the rotation axis; as the mass increases, the circulation pattern tends toward a unicellular structure covering each hemisphere in the convection zone.
The impressive development of global numerical simulations of turbulent stellar interiors unveiled a variety of possible differential rotation (solar or anti-solar), meridional circulation (single or multi-cellular), and dynamo states (stable large scale toroidal field or periodically reversing magnetic fields). Various numerical schemes, based on the so-called anelastic set of equations, were used to obtain these results. It appears today mandatory to assess their robustness with respect to the details of the numerics, and in particular to the treatment of turbulent sub-grid scales. We report…
Main-sequence massive stars possess convective cores that likely harbor strong dynamo action. To assess the role of core convection in building magnetic fields within these stars, we employ the 3-D anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code to model turbulent dynamics within a 10 solar mass main-sequence (MS) B-type star rotating at 4 times the solar rate. We find that strong (900 kG) magnetic fields arise within the turbulence of the core and penetrate into the stably stratified radiative zone. These fields exhibit complex, time-dependent behavior including reversals in magnetic polarity and shi…
When stars like our Sun are young they rotate rapidly and are very magnetically active. We explore dynamo action in rapidly rotating suns with the 3-D MHD anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code. The magnetic fields built in these dynamos are organized on global-scales into wreath-like structures that span the convection zone. Wreath-building dynamos can undergo quasi-cyclic reversals of polarity and such behavior is common in the parameter space we have been able to explore. These dynamos do not appear to require tachoclines to achieve their spatial or temporal organization. Wreath-building d…
Young solar-type stars rotate rapidly and are very magnetically active. The magnetic fields at their surfaces likely originate in their convective envelopes where convection and rotation can drive strong dynamo action. Here we explore simulations of global-scale stellar convection in rapidly rotating suns using the 3-D MHD anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code. The magnetic fields built in these dynamos are organized on global-scales into wreath-like structures that span the convection zone. We explore one case rotates five times faster than the Sun in detail. This dynamo simulation, called …
The reason for the observed thinness of the solar tachocline is still not well understood. One of the explanations that have been proposed is that a primordial magnetic field renders the rotation uniform in the radiation zone. We test here the validity of this magnetic scenario through 3D numerical MHD simulations that encompass both the radiation zone and the convection zone. The numerical simulations are performed with the anelastic spherical harmonics (ASH) code. The computational domain extends from $0.07\;R_\odot$ to $0.97\;R_\odot$. In the parameter regime we explored, a dipolar fossil f…
Stars on the lower main sequence (F-type through M-type) have substantial convective envelopes beneath their stellar photospheres. Convection in these regions can couple with rotation to build global-scale structures that may be observable by interferometers that can resolve stellar disks. Here I discuss predictions emerging from 3D MHD simulations for solar-type stars with the anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code and how these predictions may be observationally tested. The zonal flow of differential rotation is likely the most easily observable signature of dynamics occurring deep within t…
In this short review on stellar convection dynamics I address the following, currently very topical, issues: (1) the surface effects of the Reynolds stresses and nonadiabaticity on solar-like pulsation frequencies, and (2) oscillation mode lifetimes of stochastically excited oscillations in red giants computed with different time-dependent convection formulations.
We describe a 3D finite-difference spherical anelastic MHD (FSAM) code for modeling the subsonic dynamic processes in the solar convective envelope. A comparison of this code with the widely used global spectral anlastic MHD code, ASH (Anelastic Spherical Harmonics), shows that FSAM produces convective flows with statistical properties and mean flows similar to the ASH results. Using FSAM, we first simulate the rotating solar convection in a partial spherical shell domain and obtain a statistically steady, giant-cell convective flow with a solar-like differential rotation. We then insert buoya…
We present a series of 3-D nonlinear simulations of solar-like convection, carried out using the Anelastic Spherical Harmonic (ASH) code, that are designed to isolate those processes that drive and shape meridional circulations within stellar convection zones. These simulations have been constructed so as to span the transition between solar-like differential rotation (fast equator/slow poles) and ``anti-solar' differential rotation (slow equator/fast poles). Solar-like states of differential rotation, arising when convection is rotationally constrained, are characterized by a very different c…
We present a novel and powerful Compressible High-ORder Unstructured Spectral-difference (CHORUS) code for simulating thermal convection and related fluid dynamics in the interiors of stars and planets. The computational geometries are treated as rotating spherical shells filled with stratified gas. The hydrodynamic equations are discretized by a robust and efficient high-order Spectral Difference Method (SDM) on unstructured meshes. The computational stencil of the spectral difference method is compact and advantageous for parallel processing. CHORUS demonstrates excellent parallel performanc…
We have computed linear non-adiabatic oscillations of luminous red giants using a non-local and anisotropic time-dependent theory of convection. The results show that low-order radial modes can be self-excited. Their excitation is the result of radiation and the coupling between convection and oscillations. Turbulent pressure has important effects on the excitation of oscillations in red variables.
We present multidimensional modeling of convection and oscillations in main-sequence stars somewhat more massive than the Sun, using three separate approaches: 1) Using the 3-D planar StellarBox radiation hydrodynamics code to model the envelope convection zone and part of the radiative zone. Our goals are to examine the interaction of stellar pulsations with turbulent convection in the envelope, excitation of acoustic modes, and the role of convective overshooting; 2) Applying the spherical 3-D MHD ASH (Anelastic Spherical Harmonics) code to simulate the core convection and radiative zone. Ou…
We present a new grid of convective BL Herculis models using the state-of-the-art 1D non-linear radial stellar pulsation tool MESA-RSP. We investigate the impact of metallicity and four sets of different convection parameters on multi-wavelength properties. Non-linear models were computed for periods typical for BL Her stars, i.e. $1 \leq \mathrm{P (days)} \leq 4$ covering a wide range of input parameters - metallicity ($-2.0\; \mathrm{dex} \leq \mathrm{[Fe/H]} \leq 0.0\; \mathrm{dex}$), stellar mass (0.5M$_{\odot}$-0.8M$_{\odot}$), luminosity (50L$_{\odot}$-300L$_{\odot}$) and effective tempe…
We have developed a multidimensional radiation hydrodynamics code to simulate the interaction of radial stellar pulsation and convection for full amplitude pulsating models. Convection is computed using large eddy simulations. Here we perform three-dimensional simulations of RR Lyrae stars for comparison with previously reported two-dimensional simulations. We find that the time dependent behavior of the peak convective flux on pulsation phase is very similar in both the two-dimensional and three-dimensional calculations. The growth rates of the pulsation in the two-dimensional calculations ar…
The global-scale dynamo action achieved in a simulation of a Sun-like star rotating at thrice the solar rate is assessed. The 3-D MHD Anelastic Spherical Harmonic (ASH) code, augmented with a viscosity minimization scheme, is employed to capture convection and dynamo processes in this G-type star. The simulation is carried out in a spherical shell that encompasses 3.8 density scale heights of the solar convection zone. It is found that dynamo action with a high degree of time variation occurs, with many periodic polarity reversals occurring roughly every 6.2 years. The magnetic energy also ris…
Type I X-ray Bursts (XRBs) are thermonuclear explosions of accreted material on the surfaces of a neutron stars in low mass X-ray binaries. Prior to the ignition of a subsonic burning front, runaway burning at the base of the accreted layer drives convection that mixes fuel and heavy-element ashes. In this second paper in a series, we explore the behavior of this low Mach number convection in mixed hydrogen/helium layers on the surface of a neutron star using two-dimensional simulations with the Maestro code. Maestro takes advantage of the highly subsonic flow field by filtering dynamically un…
Three dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of full amplitude RR Lyrae stars have been computed for several models across the instability strip. The three dimensional nature of the calculations allows convection to be treated without reference to a phenomenological approach such as the local mixing length theory. Specifically, the time dependent interaction of the large scale eddies and the radial pulsation is controlled by the conservation laws, while the effects of smaller convective eddies are simulated by an eddy viscosity model. The light amplitudes for these calculations are quite similar…
Atomic diffusion may lead to heavy element accumulation inside stars in certain specific layers. Iron accumulation in the Z-bump opacity region has been invoked by several authors to quantitatively account for abundance anomalies observed in some stars, or to account for stellar oscillations through the induced $κ$-mechanism. These authors however never took into account the fact that such an accumulation creates an inverse $μ$-gradient, unstable for thermohaline convection. Here, we present results for A-F stars, where abundance variations are computed with and without this process. We show t…
We perform a mean-field analysis of the EULAG-MHD millenium simulation of global magnetohydrodynamical convection presented in Passos et al. 2014. The turbulent electromotive force operating in the simulation is assumed to be linearly related to the cyclic axisymmetric mean magnetic field and its first spatial derivatives. At every grid point in the simulation's meridional plane, this assumed relationship involves 27 independent tensorial coefficients. Expanding on Racine et al. 2011, we extract these coefficients from the simulation data through a least-squares minimization procedure based on…
The Kepler mission has collected light curves for almost 4 years. The excellent quality of these data has allowed us to probe the structure and the dynamics of the stars using asteroseismology. With the length of data available, we can start to look for magnetic activity cycles. The Kepler data obtained for the F star, KIC 12009504, shows a rotation period of 9.5 days and additional variability that could be due to the magnetic activity of the star. Here we present recent and preliminary 3D global-scale dynamo simulations of this star with the ASH and STELEM codes, capturing a substantial port…
The solar photosphere and the outer layer of the Sun's interior are characterized by convective motions, which display a chaotic and turbulent character. In this work, we evaluated the pseudo-Lyapunov exponents of the overshooting convective motions observed on the Sun's surface by using a method employed in the literature to estimate those exponents, as well as another technique deduced from their definition. We analyzed observations taken with state-of-the-art instruments at ground- and space-based telescopes, and we particularly benefited from the spectro-polarimetric data acquired with the…
In this paper, four sets of evolutionary models are computed with different values of the mixing length parameter $α_{\rm p}$ and the overshooting parameter $δ_{\rm ov}$. The properties of the convective cores and the convective envelopes are studied in the massive stars. We get three conclusions: First, the larger $α_{\rm p}$ leads to enhancing the convective mixing, removing the chemical gradient, and increasing the convective heat transfer efficiency. Second, core potential $ϕ_{\rm c} = M_{\rm c} / R_{\rm c}$ describes sufficiently the evolution of a star, whether it is a red or blue superg…
The amplitude of solar p-mode oscillations is governed by stochastic excitation and mode damping, both of which take place in the surface convection zone. However, the time-dependent, turbulent nature of convection makes it difficult to self-consistently study excitation and damping processes through the use of traditional one-dimensional hydrostatic models. To this end, we carried out \textit{ab initio} three-dimensional, hydrodynamical numerical simulations of the solar atmosphere to investigate how p-modes are driven and dissipated in the Sun. The description of surface convection in the si…
[Shortened] The 12C + 12C fusion reaction has been the subject of considerable experimental efforts to constrain uncertainties at temperatures relevant for stellar nucleosynthesis. In order to investigate the effect of an enhanced carbon burning rate on massive star structure and nucleosynthesis, new stellar evolution models and their yields are presented exploring the impact of three different 12C + 12C reaction rates. Non-rotating stellar models were generated using the Geneva Stellar Evolution Code and were later post-processed with the NuGrid Multi-zone Post-Processing Network tool. The en…
For more than ten years, solar-like oscillations have been detected and frequencies measured for a growing number of stars with various characteristics (e.g. different evolutionary stages, effective temperatures, gravities, metal abundances ...). Excitation of such oscillations is attributed to turbulent convection and takes place in the uppermost part of the convective envelope. Since the pioneering work of Goldreich & Keely (1977), more sophisticated theoretical models of stochastic excitation were developed, which differ from each other both by the way turbulent convection is modeled and by…
In light of recently revised observational measurements of the radius and spectroscopic parameters of the extremely old and metal-poor Gaia benchmark star HD 140283 -- also known as the Methuselah star due to prior suggestions that its age is in tension with the age of the Universe -- we present new, best estimates for the star's mass and age from stellar modeling. These are derived using 1D stellar evolutionary tracks computed with MESA and the most up-to-date measurements from CHARA interferometry. Excluding modeling variance from the uncertainties, we report a mass of $0.809 \pm 0.001 M_{\o…
Based on 3D hydrodynamical model atmospheres computed with the CO5BOLD code and 3D non-LTE (NLTE) line formation calculations, we study the effect of the convection-induced line asymmetry on the derived 6Li abundance for a range in effective temperature, gravity, and metallicity covering the stars of the Asplund et al. (2006) sample. When the asymmetry effect is taken into account for this sample of stars, the resulting 6Li/7Li ratios are reduced by about 1.5% on average with respect to the isotopic ratios determined by Asplund et al. (2006). This purely theoretical correction diminishes the n…
The rich harvest of seismic observations over the past decade provides evidence of angular momentum redistribution in stellar interiors that is not reproduced by current evolution codes. In this context, transport by internal gravity waves can play a role and could explain discrepancies between theory and observations. The efficiency of the transport of angular momentum by waves depends on their driving mechanism. While excitation by turbulence throughout the convective zone has already been investigated, we know that penetrative convection into the stably stratified radiative zone can also ge…
The dynamo action achieved in the convective cores of main-sequence massive stars is explored here through 3D global simulations of convective core dynamos operating within a young $\Msun{10}$ B-type star, using the anelastic spherical harmonic (ASH) code. These simulations capture the inner 65\% of this star by radius, encompassing the convective nuclear-burning core (about 23\% by radius) and a portion of the overlying radiative envelope. Eight rotation rates are considered, ranging from 0.05\% to 16\% of the surface breakup velocity, thereby capturing both convection that barely senses the …
Rotational velocity, lithium abundance, and the mass depth of the outer convective zone are key parameters in the study of the processes at work in the stellar interior, in particular when examining the poorly understood processes operating in the interior of solar-analog stars. We investigate whether the large dispersion in the observed lithium abundances of solar-analog stars can be explained by the depth behavior of the outer convective zone masses, within the framework of the standard convection model based on the local mixing-length theory. We also aims to analyze the link between rotatio…
Degenerate ignition of helium in low-mass stars at the end of the red giant branch phase leads to dynamic convection in their helium cores. One-dimensional (1D) stellar modeling of this intrinsically multi-dimensional dynamic event is likely to be inadequate. Previous hydrodynamic simulations imply that the single convection zone in the helium core of metal-rich Pop I stars grows during the flash on a dynamic timescale. This may lead to hydrogen injection into the core, and a double convection zone structure as known from one-dimensional core helium flash simulations of low-mass Pop III stars.…
The 3-D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Anelastic Spherical Harmonic (ASH) code, using slope-limited diffusion, is employed to capture convective and dynamo processes achieved in a global-scale stellar convection simulation for a model solar-mass star rotating at three times the solar rate. The dynamo generated magnetic fields possesses many time scales, with a prominent polarity cycle occurring roughly every 6.2 years. The magnetic field forms large-scale toroidal wreaths, whose formation is tied to the low Rossby number of the convection in this simulation. The polarity reversals are linked to the…
A series of stellar models of spectral type G is computed to study the rotation laws resulting from mean-field equations. The rotation laws of the slowly rotating Sun, the fast rotating MOST stars epsilon Eri and kappa1 Cet and the rapid rotators R58 and LQ Lup can easily be reproduced. We also find that differences in the depth of the convection zone cause large differences in the surface rotation law and that the extreme surface shear of HD 171488 can only be explained with a artificially shallow convection layer. We also check the thermal wind equilibrium in fast-rotating G dwarfs and find …
Different simplified approaches are used to account for the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) effects with 3D hydrodynamical model atmospheres. In certain cases, chemical abundances are derived in 1D NLTE and corrected for the 3D effects by adding 3D-1D LTE abundance corrections (3D+NLTE approach). Alternatively, average <3D> model atmospheres are sometimes used to substitute for the full 3D hydrodynamical models. We tested whether the results obtained using these simplified schemes (i.e., 3D+NLTE, <3D> NLTE) may reproduce those derived using the full 3D NLTE computations. The tests w…
The last decade showed an impressive observational effort from the photometric and spectroscopic point of view for ancient stellar clusters in our Galaxy and beyond. The theoretical interpretation of these new observational results requires updated evolutionary models and isochrones spanning a wide range of chemical composition. With this aim we built the new "Pisa Stellar Evolution Database" of stellar models and isochrones by adopting a well-tested evolutionary code (FRANEC) implemented with updated physical and chemical inputs. In particular, our code adopts realistic atmosphere models and …
We seek to characterize how the change of global rotation rate influences the overall dynamics and large scale flows arising in the convective envelopes of stars covering stellar spectral types from early G to late K. We do so through numerical simulations with the ASH code, where we consider stellar convective envelopes coupled to a radiative interior with various global properties. As solar-like stars spin down over the course of their main sequence evolution, such change must have a direct impact on their dynamics and rotation state. We indeed find that three main states of rotation may exi…
We study the influence of stratification on stellar turbulent convection near the stellar surface and in depth by carrying out 3D high resolution hydrodynamic simulations with the ASH code. Four simulations with different radial density contrast corresponding to different aspect ratio for the same underlying 4 Myr $0.7 M_\odot$ pre-main sequence star model are thus performed. We highlight the existence of giant cells which are embedded in the complex surface convective patterns using a wavelet and time correlation analysis. Next, we study their properties such as their lifetime, aspect ratio a…
A model for the solar dynamo, consistent in global flow and numerical method employed with the differential rotation model, is developed. The magnetic turbulent diffusivity is expressed in terms of the entropy gradient, which is controlled by the model equations. The magnetic Prandtl number and latitudinal profile of the alpha-effect are specified by fitting the computed period of the activity cycle and the equatorial symmetry of magnetic fields to observations. Then, the instants of polar field reversals and time-latitude diagrams of the fields also come into agreement with observations. The …
In the last decade, the photospheric abundances of the Sun had been revised several times by many observers. The standard solar models (SSM) constructed with the new low-metal abundances disagree with helioseismic results and detected neutrino fluxes. The solar model problem has been puzzled some stellar physicists for more than ten years. Rotation, enhanced diffusion, convection overshoot, and magnetic fields are used to reconcile the new abundances with helioseismology. The \textbf{too} low-helium \textbf{subsurface abundance} in enhanced diffusion models can be improved by the mixing caused…
We compute rotating 1D stellar evolution models that include a modified temperature gradient in convection zones and criterion for convective instability inspired by rotating 3D hydrodynamical simulations performed with the MUSIC code. In those 3D simulations we found that convective properties strongly depend on the Solberg-Høiland criterion for stability. We therefore incorporated this into 1D stellar evolution models by replacing the usual Schwarzschild criterion for stability and also modifying the temperature gradient in convection zones. We computed a grid of 1D models between 0.55 and 1…
We present a statistical analysis of turbulent convection in stars within our Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) framework in spherical geometry which we derived from first principles. The primary results reported in this document include: (1) an extensive set of mean-field equations for compressible, multi-species hydrodynamics, and (2) corresponding mean-field data computed from various simulation models. Some supplementary scale analysis data is also presented. The simulation data which is presented includes: (1) shell convection during oxygen burning in a 23 solar mass supernova progen…
The observed convective flows on the photosphere (e.g., supergranulation, granulation) play a key role in the Babcock-Leighton (BL) process to generate large-scale polar fields from sunspots fields. In most surface flux transport (SFT) and BL dynamo models, the dispersal and migration of surface fields is modeled as an effective turbulent diffusion. Recent SFT models have incorporated explicit, realistic convective flows in order to improve the fidelity of convective transport but, to our knowledge, this has not yet been implemented in previous BL models. Since most Flux-Transport (FT)/BL mode…
Gravitational-wave detections are now probing the black hole (BH) mass distribution, including the predicted pair-instability mass gap. These data require robust quantitative predictions, which are challenging to obtain. The most massive BH progenitors experience episodic mass ejections on timescales shorter than the convective turn-over timescale. This invalidates the steady-state assumption on which the classic mixing-length theory relies. We compare the final BH masses computed with two different versions of the stellar evolutionary code \texttt{MESA}: (i) using the default implementation o…
Supergranulation is one of the most visible length scales of solar convection and has been studied extensively by local helioseismology. We use synthetic data computed with the Seismic Propagation through Active Regions and Convection (SPARC) code to test regularized-least squares (RLS) inversions of helioseismic holography measurements for a supergranulation-like flow. The code simulates the acoustic wavefield by solving the linearized three-dimensional Euler equations in Cartesian geometry. We model a single supergranulation cell with a simple, axisymmetric, mass-conserving flow. The use of …
We present a method to characterize the spectral transfers of magnetic energy between scales in simulations of stellar convective dynamos. The full triadic transfer functions are computed thanks to analytical coupling relations of spherical harmonics based on the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. The method is applied to mean field $αΩ$ dynamo models as benchmark tests. From the physical standpoint, the decomposition of the dynamo field into primary and secondary dynamo families proves very instructive in the $αΩ$ case. The same method is then applied to a fully turbulent dynamo in a solar convecti…
Stellar activity and convection-related surface structures might cause bias in planet detection and characterization that use these transits. Surface convection simulations help to quantify the granulation signal. We used realistic three-dimensional radiative hydrodynamical simulations from the Stagger grid and synthetic images computed with the radiative transfer code Optim3D to model the transits of three prototype planets: a hot Jupiter, a hot Neptune, and a terrestrial planet. We computed intensity maps from RHD simulations of the Sun and a K-dwarf star at different wavelength bands from o…
Numerous observational evidence has suggested the presence of active meteorology in the atmospheres of brown dwarfs. A near-infrared brightness variability has been observed. Clouds have a major role in shaping the thermal structure and spectral properties of these atmospheres. The mechanism of such variability is still unclear and both 1D and global circulation model cannot fully study this topics due to resolution. In this study, a convective resolving model is coupled to grey-band radiative transfer in order to study the coupling between the convective atmosphere and the variability of clou…
Stellar activity and, in particular, convection-related surface structures, potentially cause fluctuations that can affect the transit light curves. Surface convection simulations can help the interpretation of ToV. We used realistic three-dimensional radiative hydrodynamical simulation of the Sun from the Stagger-grid and synthetic images computed with the radiative transfer code Optim3D to provide predictions for the transit of Venus in 2004 observed by the satellite ACRIMSAT. We computed intensity maps from RHD simulation of the Sun and produced synthetic stellar disk image. We computed the…
