Some Light Reading for the Sleep Deprived

One of my workmates was doing some work related research on google, thank goodness someone else is doing this vital research, and thank further goodness that i am not working on the same task he is. Just goes to show there is a lot of goodness in the world after all.

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Thermonuclear supernova simulations with stochastic ignition

W. Schmidt and J. C. Niemeyer
Lehrstuhl f¨ur Astronomie, Institut f¨ur Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik,
Universit¨at W¨urzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 W¨urzburg, Germany
Received / Accepted

Abstract. We apply an ad hoc model for dynamical ignition in three-dimensional numerical simulations of thermonuclear supernovae assuming pure deflagrations. The model makes use of the statistical description of temperature fluctuations in the pre-supernova core proposed by Wunsch & Woosley (2004). Randomness in time is implemented by means of a Poisson process.

We are able to vary the explosion energy and nucleosynthesis depending on the free parameter of the model which controls the rapidity of the ignition process. However, beyond a certain threshold, the strength of the explosion saturates and the outcome appears to be robust with respect to number of ignitions. In the most energetic explosions, we find about 0.75M_ of iron
group elements. Other than in simulations with simultaneous multi-spot ignition, the amount of unburned carbon and oxygen at radial velocities of a few 103 km/s tends to be reduced for an ever increasing number of ignition events and, accordingly, more pronounced layering results.