Research
APS Physics hi-lights our work on the origin of Ca in the first massive Pop III stars
We have worked with nuclear physics experts at Notre Dame within the NSF Physics Frontier Centre JINA-CEE to figure out how Ca is made in the first massive stars. Two scenarios are competing, the faint supernova scenario relies on Ca production from hot CNO breakout reaction in H burning, while the light i process scenario is based on convective H and He shell interactions and the resulting neutron-capture nucleosynthesis. More research is needed to settle this question.
R&D magazine report on our core convection hydrodynamics simulations on the new Canadian Niagara supercomputer
As R&D magazine reports Herwig and his collaborators have used "Canada’s most powerful research supercomputer to simulate life of a star”. To understand a star’s structure, researchers simulate them on a supercomputer using complex hydrodynamics calculations over a long series of time steps. These very detailed simulations of the core convection in a massive star reveal the turbulent flows of the interior and stellar oscillations that can be observed with space telescopes like Kepler or TESS. These simulations provide exquisite detail on how different parts of the stars are mixed, which in turn improves our understanding how the elements form in stars and stellar explosions.
CSA on ADS
Projects CSA members were involved in since 2012.
Stellar Hydro Days IV
An international workshop at the University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada. May 29 - June 2, 2017.
Stellar Hydrodynamics
Together with Paul Woodward and his group we are investigating stellar interior convection with nuclear burning at Damköhler numbers ~1, i.e. nuclear burn time scale and convective mixing time scale are similar. The ultimate goal is to develop a better understanding of convective mixing in stellar evolution, and the formation of the elements in the first generations of stars, where this nucleosynthesis and hydrodynamics regime is believed to be important.
i process
Nucleosynthesis, stellar evolution and hydrodynamics of the intermediate neutron capture process.
Chemical evolution
Several of our projects have explored the application of our NuGrid yields and other yields to chemical evolution models. For this purpose Christian Ritter and Benoit Côté have developed NuPyCEE.
Common-envelope simulations
One-dimensional and three-dimensional simulations of the common envelope binary interaction phase led by former PhD student Jean-Claude Passy.
WENDI: Web-Exploration of Numerical Data Interactive
WENDI is a portal that provides cloud access to your own ipython notebook and terminal environment for computing, data gathering and analysis.
WestGrid Researcher Profile
Falk Herwig's researcher profile on the WestGrid web page. WestGrid provides critical computing cycles for the Computational Stellar Astrophysics program.
Cyberhubs and WENDI
Cyberhubs are a jupyterhub based virtual research environment. WENDI is the Web Exploration for NuGrid Data Interactive, a cyberhubs implementation.
i process review and convective-reactive burning in stars
Invited presentation given by Falk Herwig at the NIC XVI conference on Sep 21, 2021.
