March 10, 2020

Speaker: Keaton Burns (MIT)

Contact Information: kjburns@mit.edu

Title: Inside Stars and Planets: Meeting the Challenges of Low-Mach-Number Astrophysics

Abstract: Detailed hydrodynamic models are key to understanding the structure and evolution of stars and planets. While the astrophysical community has made exceptional progress in simulating highly compressible flows, models of low-Mach-number stellar and planetary flows typically use simplified equations based on numerical techniques for incompressible fluids. Here, I will discuss improving numerical models of several low-Mach-number phenomena: convection in low-mass stars, tidal instabilities in binary neutron stars and ice-ocean interactions in icy moons. I will present ongoing additions to the open-source Dedalus Project that are enabling the efficient simulation of these systems for the first time in full spherical domains with spectral accuracy, implicit time-stepping and realistic equations of state. These features are already enabling high-fidelity studies of M-dwarf magnetism, and will soon enable new predictions of tidal effects in LIGO waveforms and in the ocean dynamics of bodies like Enceladus and Europa.