TY - JOUR
T1 - Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA)
T2 - Convective Boundaries, Element Diffusion, and Massive Star Explosions
AU - Paxton, Bill
AU - Schwab, Josiah
AU - Bauer, Evan B.
AU - Bildsten, Lars
AU - Blinnikov, Sergei
AU - Duffell, Paul
AU - Farmer, R.
AU - Goldberg, Jared A.
AU - Marchant, Pablo
AU - Sorokina, Elena
AU - Thoul, Anne
AU - Townsend, Richard H.D.
AU - Timmes, Francis
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - We update the capabilities of the software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) and enhance its ease of use and availability. Our new approach to locating convective boundaries is consistent with the physics of convection, and yields reliable values of the convective-core mass during both hydrogen- and helium-burning phases. Stars with become white dwarfs and cool to the point where the electrons are degenerate and the ions are strongly coupled, a realm now available to study with MESA due to improved treatments of element diffusion, latent heat release, and blending of equations of state. Studies of the final fates of massive stars are extended in MESA by our addition of an approximate Riemann solver that captures shocks and conserves energy to high accuracy during dynamic epochs. We also introduce a 1D capability for modeling the effects of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that, in combination with the coupling to a public version of the radiation transfer instrument, creates new avenues for exploring Type II supernova properties. These capabilities are exhibited with exploratory models of pair-instability supernovae, pulsational pair-instability supernovae, and the formation of stellar-mass black holes. The applicability of MESA is now widened by the capability to import multidimensional hydrodynamic models into MESA. We close by introducing software modules for handling floating point exceptions and stellar model optimization, as well as four new software tools MESA- Web, MESA-Docker, pyMESA, and mesastar.org - to enhance MESA's education and research impact.
AB - We update the capabilities of the software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) and enhance its ease of use and availability. Our new approach to locating convective boundaries is consistent with the physics of convection, and yields reliable values of the convective-core mass during both hydrogen- and helium-burning phases. Stars with become white dwarfs and cool to the point where the electrons are degenerate and the ions are strongly coupled, a realm now available to study with MESA due to improved treatments of element diffusion, latent heat release, and blending of equations of state. Studies of the final fates of massive stars are extended in MESA by our addition of an approximate Riemann solver that captures shocks and conserves energy to high accuracy during dynamic epochs. We also introduce a 1D capability for modeling the effects of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that, in combination with the coupling to a public version of the radiation transfer instrument, creates new avenues for exploring Type II supernova properties. These capabilities are exhibited with exploratory models of pair-instability supernovae, pulsational pair-instability supernovae, and the formation of stellar-mass black holes. The applicability of MESA is now widened by the capability to import multidimensional hydrodynamic models into MESA. We close by introducing software modules for handling floating point exceptions and stellar model optimization, as well as four new software tools MESA- Web, MESA-Docker, pyMESA, and mesastar.org - to enhance MESA's education and research impact.
KW - convection
KW - diffusion
KW - hydrodynamics
KW - methods: numerical
KW - stars: evolution
KW - supernovae: general
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042526095&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85042526095&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/1538-4365/aaa5a8
DO - 10.3847/1538-4365/aaa5a8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85042526095
SN - 0067-0049
VL - 234
JO - Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
JF - Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
IS - 2
M1 - 34
ER -