Previous | Session 17 | Next | Author Index | Block Schedule
S. Parete-Koon (University of Tennessee), W. R. Hix (Oak Ridge National Lab., U. Tennessee), C. Freiburghaus, F.-K. Thielemann (University of Basel)
Iron and neighboring nuclei are formed in massive stars before core collapse and during supernova outbursts. Complete and incomplete silicon burning is responsible for the production of a wide range of nuclei with atomic mass numbers from 28 to 70. Because of the large number of nuclei involved, accurate modeling of silicon burning is computationally expensive. Examination of the physics of silicon burning revels that the nuclear evolution is dominated by large groups of nuclei in mutual equilibrium. We present a hybrid equilibrium scheme, which takes advantage of this quasi-equilibrium (QSE) in order to reduce the number of independent variables calculated. This allows accurate prediction of the nuclear abundance evolution, deleptionization, and energy generation. During silicon burning the QSE-reduced network runs six times as fast and requires just over a third as many variables without a significant loss of accuracy. Theses reductions in computational cost make the QSE-reduced network well suited for inclusion within hydrodynamic simulations, particularly in multi-dimensional applications.
This work was supported in part by NSF grant PHY-0244783 from the Theoretical Nuclear Physics and Stellar Astronomy and Astrophysics Programs and by SciDAC grants to the TeraScale Supernova Initiative from the DOE Office of Science High-Energy, Nuclear, and Advanced Scientific Computing Research Programs. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Previous | Session 17 | Next
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.