New research shows that supermassive first-generation stars may explode in supernovae without leaving behind remnants like black holes. The work is a result of modeling the life and death of stars 55,000 to 56,000 times more massive than our sun. When such stars reach the end of their lives, they become unstable due to relativistic effects and begin to collapse inward. The collapse reinvigorates fusion inside the star and it begins to rapidly fuse heavier elements like oxygen, magnesium, or even iron from the helium in its core. Eventually, the energy released overcomes the binding energy of the star and it explodes outward as a supernova. The image above is a slice through such a star approximately one day after its collapse is reversed. Hydrodynamic instabilities like the Rayleigh-Taylor instability produce mixing of the heavy elements throughout the expanding interior of the star. The mixing should produce a signature that can be observed in the aftermath as these stars seed their galaxies with the heavy elements needed to form planets. For more, see Science Daily and Chen et al. (Image credit: K. Chen et al., via Science Daily; submitted by mechanicoolest)
Tag: numerical simulation
City Winds Simulated
Anyone who has spent much time in an urban environment is familiar with the gusty turbulence that can be generated by steady winds interacting with tall buildings. To the atmospheric boundary layer–the first few hundred meters of atmosphere just above the ground–cities, forests, and other terrain changes act like sudden patches of roughness that disturb the flow and generate turbulence. The video above shows a numerical simulation of flow over an urban environment. The incoming flow off the ocean is relatively calm due to the smoothness of the water. But the roughness of an artificial island just off the coast acts like a trip, creating a new and more turbulent boundary layer within the atmospheric boundary layer. It’s this growing internal boundary layer whose turbulence we see visualized in greens and reds. (Video credit: H. Knoop et al.)
Supernova Explosion
Type 1a supernovae occur in binary star systems where a dense white dwarf star accretes matter from its companion star. As the dwarf star gains mass, it approaches the limit where electron degeneracy pressure can no longer oppose the gravitational force of its mass. Carbon fusion in the white dwarf ignites a flame front, creating isolated bubbles of burning fluid inside the star. As these bubbles burn, they rise due to buoyancy and are sheared and deformed by the neighboring matter. The animation above is a visualization of temperature from a simulation of one of these burning buoyant bubbles. After the initial ignition, instabilities form rapidly on the expanding flame front and it quickly becomes turbulent. (Image credit: A. Aspden and J. Bell; GIF credit: fruitsoftheweb, source video; via freshphotons)
Hummingbird Hovering
The hummingbird has long been admired for its ability to hover in flight. The key to this behavior is the bird’s capability to produce lift on both its downstroke and its upstroke. The animation above shows a simulation of hovering hummingbird. The kinematics of the bird’s flapping–the figure-8 motion and the twist of the wings through each cycle–are based on high-speed video of actual hummingbirds. These data were then used to construct a digital model of a hummingbird, about which scientists simulated airflow. About 70% of the lift each cycle is generated by the downstroke, much of it coming from the leading-edge vortex that develops on the wing. The remainder of the lift is creating during the upstroke as the bird pulls its wings back. During this part of the cycle, the flexible hummingbird twists its wings to a very high angle of attack, which is necessary to generate and maintain a leading-edge vortex on the upstroke. The full-scale animation is here. (Image credit: J. Song et al.; via Wired; submitted by averagegrdy)
The Upside-Down Jellyfish
The upside-down jellyfish, Cassiopea, rests its bell against the ocean floor and points its frilly oral arms up toward the sun for the benefit of the symbiotic algae living on it. In return, the algae provide some of the nutrients the jellyfish needs. The rest it obtains by filter feeding for zooplankton. The video above shows how a combination of flow visualization and simplified computational modeling can reveal the jellyfish’s methods for eating. A simple pulsing bell has limited fluid flow in the region of the jellyfish’s mouths, but the addition of a permeable layer (representative of the oral arms) significantly enhances mixing. (Video credit: T. Rodriguez et al.)
Protostellar Jets
As young stars form, they often produce narrow high-speed jets from their poles. By astronomical standards, these fountains are dense, narrowly collimated, and quickly changing. The jets have been measured at velocities greater than 200 km/s and Mach numbers as high as 20. The animation above (which you should watch in its full and glorious resolution here) is a numerical simulation of a protostellar jet. Every few decades the source star releases a new pulse, which expands, cools, and becomes unstable as it travels away from the star. Models like these, combined with observations from telescopes like Hubble, help astronomers unravel how and why these jets form. (Image credit: J. Stone and M. Norman)
ETA: As it happens, the APOD today is also about protostellar jets, so check that out for an image of the real thing. Thanks, jshoer!
The Structure of Turbulence
Though they may appear random at first glance, turbulent flows do possess structure. The video above shows a numerical simulation of a mixing layer, a flow in which two adjacent regions of fluid move with different velocities. The upper third of the frame shows a top view, and the bottom frame shows a side view, in which the upper fluid layer moves faster than the lower one. The difference in velocities creates shear which quickly drives the mixing layer into turbulence. But watch the chaos carefully, and your eye will pick out vortices rolling clockwise in the largest scales of the mixing layer. These features are known as coherent structures, and they are key to current efforts to understand and model turbulent flows. (Video credit: A. McMullan)
Stingray Wakes
This numerical simulation shows a swimming stingray and the vorticity generated by its motion. Stingrays are undulatory swimmers, meaning that the wavelength of their motion is much shorter than their body length. Manta rays, in contrast, move their fins through a wavelength longer than their body length, making them oscillatory swimmers. Observe the difference in this video. To swim faster, stingrays increase the frequency of their undulation, not the amplitude. This is quite common among swimmers because increasing the amplitude also increases projected frontal area, which causes additional drag. Increasing the frequency of motion does not affect the projected area, making it the more efficient locomotive choice. (Video credit: G. Weymouth; additional research credit: E. Blevins; submitted by L. Buss)
Also, FYFD now has a Google+ page for those who prefer to follow along and share that way. – Nicole
Instability: Dense Over Light
Here on Earth, placing a dense layer of fluid atop a less dense layer is unstable. Specifically, the situation causes the interface between the two fluids to break down in what is known as the Rayleigh-Taylor instability.The video above shows a 2D numerical simulation of this breakdown, with the darker, denser fluid on top. The waviness of the initial interface provides a perturbation–a small disturbance–which grows in time. The two fluids spiral into one another in a fractal-like mushroom pattern. The continued motion of the dense fluid downward and the lighter fluid upward mixes the entire volume toward a uniform equilibrium. For those interested in the numerical methods used, check out the original video page. (Video credit: Thunabrain)
Turbulence and Magnetic Field Lines
During a solar flare, magnetic field lines on the sun are often visible due to the flow of plasma–charged particles–along the lines. According to theory, these magnetic lines should remain intact, but they are sometimes observed breaking and reconnecting with other lines. An interdisciplinary team of researchers suggests that turbulence may be the missing link. In their magnetohydrodynamic simulation, they found that the presence of chaotic turbulent motions made the magnetic line motion entirely unpredictable, whereas laminar flows behaved according to conventional flux-freezing theory. (Photo credit: NASA SDO; Research credit: G. Eyink et al.; via SpaceRef; submitted by jshoer)
