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M. Zingale (University of Chicago), J. C. Niemeyer (Max-Planck Institut fur Astrophysik), F. X. Timmes, L. J. Dursi, A. C. Calder, B. Fryxell (University of Chicago), K. Olson (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center), P. Ricker, R. Rosner, J. W. Truran, H. Tufo (University of Chicago), P. MacNeice (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)
A Type Ia supernova begins as a flame, deep in the interior of a white dwarf. At some point, the burning may undergo a deflagration-detonation transition (DDT). Some mechanisms for this transition require a preconditioned region in the star. As the flame propagates down the temperature gradient, the speed increases, and the transition to a detonation may occur (see Khokhlov et al. 1997; Niemeyer & Woosley 1997). For this to happen, the region must be free of any temperature fluctuations -- any burning must be quenched.
We show direct numerical simulations of flame-vortex interactions in order to understand quenching of thermonuclear flames. The key question is -- can a thermonuclear flame be quenched? If not, the DDT mechanisms that demand the finely tuned preconditioned region are unlikely to work. In these simulations, we pass a steady-state laminar flame through a vortex pair. The vortex pair represents the most severe strain the flame front will encounter inside the white dwarf. We perform a parameter study, varying the speed and size of the vortex pair, in order to understand the quenching process.
These simulations were carried out with the FLASH Code. This work is supported by the Department of Energy under Grant No. B341495 to the Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes at the University of Chicago. These calculations were performed on the Nirvana Cluster at Los Alamos National Laboratory
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