Fluid Mixing during Phase Separation in Crystallizing White Dwarfs

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Fluid Mixing during Phase Separation in Crystallizing White Dwarfs
المؤلفون: Montgomery, M. H., Dunlap, Bart H.
سنة النشر: 2023
المجموعة: Astrophysics
Physics (Other)
مصطلحات موضوعية: Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, Physics - Geophysics
الوصف: Accurate models of cooling white dwarfs must treat the energy released as their cores crystallize. This phase transition slows the cooling by releasing latent heat and also gravitational energy, which results from phase separation: liquid C is released from the solid C/O core, driving an outward carbon flux. The Gaia color-magnitude diagram provides striking confirmation of this theory by revealing a mass-dependent overdensity of white dwarfs, indicating slowed cooling at the expected location. However, the observed overdensity is enhanced relative to the models. Additionally, it is associated with increased magnetism, suggesting a link between crystallization and magnetic field generation. Recent works aimed at explaining an enhanced cooling delay and magnetic field generation employ a uniform mixing prescription that assumes large-scale turbulent motions; we show here that these calculations are not self-consistent. We also show that thermohaline mixing is most likely efficient enough to provide the required chemical redistribution during C/O phase separation, and that the resulting velocities and mixing lengths are much smaller than previous estimates. These reduced fluid motions cannot generate measurable magnetic fields, suggesting any link with crystallization needs to invoke a separate mechanism. Finally, this mixing alters the chemical profiles which in turn affects the frequencies of the pulsation modes.
Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the ApJ
نوع الوثيقة: Working Paper
URL الوصول: http://arxiv.org/abs/2312.11647
رقم الأكسشن: edsarx.2312.11647
قاعدة البيانات: arXiv