2025/02/04 by Dillon Hasenour, Dillon L. Hasenour, Paul Duffell +1 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive mesh refinement #Algorithm #Classical mechanics #Computation #Computational science #Computer graphics (images) #Computer science #Deflagration #Detonation #Explosive material #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Mechanics #Nuclear physics #Nuclear reactor physics and engineering #Physics #Plasma #Polygon mesh #Shock (circulatory) #Shock wave #Thermonuclear fusion
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/adaeb0
published in The Astrophysical Journal 981(1), 63 (IOP Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2025/02/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract Many astrophysical explosions, such as type Ia supernovae, classical novae, and X-ray bursts, are dominated by thermonuclear runaway. To model these processes accurately, one must evolve nuclear reactions concurrently with hydrodynamics. We present an application of the moving mesh technique to this field of computation with the aim of explicitly testing the advantages of the method against the fixed mesh case. By way of traditional Strang splitting, our work couples a 13 isotope nuclear reaction network to a 1D moving mesh, Cartesian geometry hydrodynamics code. We explore three reacting problems: an acoustic pulse, a burning shock, and an advecting deflagration. Additionally, using the shock jump conditions, we semianalytically solve the burning shock problem under the assumption of quick, complete burning with the hope of establishing a useful and easy-to-set-up test problem. Strong moving mesh advantages are found in advecting, deflagrating flame fronts, where the technique dramatically reduces numerical diffusion that would otherwise lead to very fast artificial deflagration.