Chemical composition of dust clouds in turbulent brown dwarf atmospheres
Abstract
Brown dwarf atmospheres are largely convective. These convective gas flows collide and feed back a whole spectrum of turbulent fluctuations into the atmospheric fluid field. Resulting non-static density and temperature fields influence the local chemistry concerning gas phase and dust formation. Numerical simulations are used to show the large and inhomogeneous changes of the gas phase chemistry in a turbulent dust forming cloud region of a brown dwarf atmosphere. The relaxation time scale of the gas phase composition towards steady state is considerably longer than for the dust component.
- Publication:
-
Convection in Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- May 2007
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 2007IAUS..239..224H
- Keywords:
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- Turbulence;
- convection;
- astrochemistry;
- methods: numerical;
- stars: low-mass;
- brown dwarfs;
- infrared: stars