Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics ( ): Convective Boundaries, Element Diffusion, and Massive Star Explosions

By B. Paxton, J. Schwab, E. Bauer, L. Bildsten, S. Blinnikov, P. Duffell, R. Farmer, J. Goldberg, P. Marchant, Elena Sorokina and 3 more. 2017

1,372 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We update the capabilities of the software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) and enhance its ease of use and availability. Our new approach to locating convective boundaries is consistent with the physics of convection, and yields reliable values of the convective-core mass during both hydrogen- and helium-burning phases. Stars with become white dwarfs and cool to the point where the electrons are degenerate and the ions are strongly coupled, a realm now available to study with MESA due to improved treatments of element diffusion, latent heat release, and blending of equations of state. Studies of the final fates of massive stars are extended in MESA by our addition of an approximate Riemann solver that captures shocks and conserves energy to high accuracy during dynamic epochs. We also introduce a 1D capability for modeling the effects of Rayleigh–Taylor instabilities that, in combination with the coupling to a public version of the radiation transfer instrument, creates new avenues for exploring Type II supernova properties. These capabilities are exhibited with exploratory models of pair-instability supernovae, pulsational pair-instability supernovae, and the formation of stellar-mass black holes. The applicability of MESA is now widened by the capability to import multidimensional hydrodynamic models into MESA. We close by introducing software modules for handling floating point exceptions and stellar model optimization, as well as four new software tools— , -Docker, , and mesastar.org—to enhance MESA’s education and research impact.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/06c8bcbe8e93461f13b1fb1866c245a62fa19c8c

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Citations in the corpus

• Exploring Fundamentally Three-dimensional Phenomena in High-fidelity Simulations of Core-collapse Supernovae (2018, methodology): “For these simulations we use the same progenitor with a ZAMS mass of 20M produced using the MESA stellar evolution package.”
• Evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates for LIGO/Virgo binary black holes (2017, methodology): “MESA stellar models The MESA stellar models were evolved using MESA revision 10398 (Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019).”
• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation (2019, positive): “Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) was introduced in Paxton et al. 2011 (Paper I) and significantly expanded its range of capabilities in Paxton et al. 2013 (Paper II), Paxton et al. 2015 (Paper III), and Paxton et al. 2018 (Paper IV).”
• The origin of spin in binary black holes (2019, methodology): “A97, page 17 of 18 We cover these points by running MESA binary simulations as described in Sect.”
• Most Black Holes Are Born Very Slowly Rotating (2019, methodology): “Stellar Models We construct stellar models with the MESA stellar evolution code (Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018), implementing the AM viscosity above.”
• On the Spectral Evolution of Hot White Dwarf Stars. I. A Detailed Model Atmosphere Analysis of Hot White Dwarfs from SDSS DR12 (2020, methodology): “To generate our starting models, we relied on the public stellarevolution code Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA; Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019).”
• Constraints from Gravitational-wave Detections of Binary Black Hole Mergers on the 12C(α, γ)16O Rate (2020, methodology): “MESA’s default nuclear reaction rates come from a combination of NACRE (Angulo et al. 1999) and REACLIB (Cyburt et al. 2010) (default snapshot7).”
• COSMIC Variance in Binary Population Synthesis (2019, methodology): “One approach is to modify a stellar evolution code previously developed for single stars to include the effects of binary evolution, as found in ev/STARS/TWIN (Pols et al. 1995; Nelson & Eggleton 2001), the Brussels population number synthesis code, PNS (De Donder & Vanbeveren 2004), BINSTAR (Siess ”
• One Channel to Rule Them All? Constraining the Origins of Binary Black Holes Using Multiple Formation Pathways (2020, methodology): “…et al. 2021; in preparation), which, among other functionalities, stitches together different phases of binary evolution that are modeled using rapid population synthesis (COSMIC; Breivik et al. 2020) and detailed binary evolution calculations (MESA; Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019).”
• Slowing the spins of stellar cores (2019, methodology): “To that end, we construct rotating stellar models using the MESA stellar evolution code (Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018).”
• The spin of the second-born black hole in coalescing binary black holes (2018, methodology): “…and in the mass regime that leads to BH formation, we evolved, using the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) code version 8118 (Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018), single massive stars of 50 M and 90 M at metallicities of 0.01 Z , 0.1 Z and Z (Z is the solar metallicity…”
• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Time-dependent Convection, Energy Conservation, Automatic Differentiation, and Infrastructure (2022, background): “…in Stellar Astrophysics software instrument papers (Paxton et al. 2011, MESA I; Paxton et al. 2013, MESA II; Paxton et al. 2015, MESA III; Paxton et al. 2018, MESA IV; Paxton et al. 2019, MESA V), as well as this one, describe new capabilities and limitations of MESA while also comparing…”
• Three Hypervelocity White Dwarfs in Gaia DR2: Evidence for Dynamically Driven Double-degenerate Double-detonation Type Ia Supernovae (2018, neutral): “Software: rvsao (Kurtz & Mink 1998);astropy (The Astropy Collaboration et al. 2018); galpy (Bovy 2015); MESA (v10108; Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018) REFERENCES Alam, S., Albareti, F. D., Allende Prieto, C., et al. 2015, ApJS, 219, 12, doi: 10.1088/0067-0049/219/1/12 Astraatmadja, T. L., &…”
• A Guide to Realistic Uncertainties on the Fundamental Properties of Solar-type Exoplanet Host Stars (2020, methodology): “In brief, they are generated using the MESA stellar evolution code (Paxton et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019) and are available online2.”