Thermodynamics of convective Urca cores.
Abstract
It is noted that the evolution of degenerate stellar cores after carbon ignition has been computed taking only convection-driven Urca processes and the energy balance into account and by assuming the existence of a stationary convective Urca model for any (not too large) energy source. An analysis of convective instability, energy transport, and the rate of growth of entropy is performed which proves that ignoring the entropy budget leads to an overestimate of the stabilizing properties of convective Urca processes and that the existence of a stationary convective Urca zone is impossible.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- December 1975
- Bibcode:
- 1975A&A....45..141L
- Keywords:
-
- Carbon;
- Convective Heat Transfer;
- Nuclear Fusion;
- Stellar Structure;
- Thermodynamic Equilibrium;
- Astronomical Models;
- Cores;
- Entropy;
- Gas Expansion;
- Heat Balance;
- Heat Budget;
- Thermonuclear Reactions;
- Astrophysics