Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-11-15
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Submitted to ApJ Letters on October 29th. 15 pages, 4 figures. See Garaud 2010 for companion paper
Scientific paper
We present the first three-dimensional simulations of fingering convection performed in a parameter regime close to the one relevant for astrophysics, and reveal the existence of simple asymptotic scaling laws for turbulent heat and compositional transport. These laws can straightforwardly be extrapolated to the true astrophysical regime. Our investigation also indicates that thermocompositional "staircases," a key consequence of fingering convection in the ocean, cannot form spontaneously in the fingering regime in stellar interiors. Our proposed empirically-determined transport laws thus provide simple prescriptions for mixing by fingering convection in a variety of astrophysical situations, and should, from here on, be used preferentially over older and less accurate parameterizations. They also establish that fingering convection does not provide sufficient extra mixing to explain observed chemical abundances in RGB stars.
Garaud Pascale
Stellmach Stephan
Traxler Adrienne
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