Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation

By B. Paxton, R. Smolec, J. Schwab, A. Gautschy, Lars Bildsten, Matteo Cantiello, Aaron Dotter, R. Farmer, J. Goldberg, Adam S. Jermyn and 7 more. Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2019

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We update the capabilities of the open-knowledge software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA). RSP is a new functionality in MESAstar that models the nonlinear radial stellar pulsations that characterize RR Lyrae, Cepheids, and other classes of variable stars. We significantly enhance numerical energy conservation capabilities, including during mass changes. For example, this enables calculations through the He flash that conserve energy to better than 0.001%. To improve the modeling of rotating stars in MESA, we introduce a new approach to modifying the pressure and temperature equations of stellar structure, as well as a formulation of the projection effects of gravity darkening. A new scheme for tracking convective boundaries yields reliable values of the convective core mass and allows the natural emergence of adiabatic semiconvection regions during both core hydrogen- and helium-burning phases. We quantify the parallel performance of MESA on current-generation multicore architectures and demonstrate improvements in the computational efficiency of radiative levitation. We report updates to the equation of state and nuclear reaction physics modules. We briefly discuss the current treatment of fallback in core-collapse supernova models and the thermodynamic evolution of supernova explosions. We close by discussing the new MESA Testhub software infrastructure to enhance source code development.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e710f8492b1f38bf7723ccf7cd3bc10431b5366a

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Citations in the corpus

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.”
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 ”
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).”
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).”
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).”
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).”
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.”
Advancing globular cluster constraints on the axion-photon coupling (2022, background): “The typical approach to handling convective boundaries in MESA can lead to theoretical deficiencies in the models, a summary of which can be found in the MESA instrument papers [58, 59].”
Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Time-dependent Convection, Energy Conservation, Automatic Differentiation, and Infrastructure (2022, result): “The previous Modules for Experiments 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 ”