Astronomy Tea Talk
Jing-Ze is a final-year PhD student at Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics working on numerical methods for radiation hydrodynamics, 3D simulations of massive stars and other binary stellar physics problems.
As the evolved descendants of massive stars and the progenitors of supernovae and compact objects, red supergiant stars act as a bridge between massive star evolution, astrophysical transients, and gravitational wave sources. One famous example is Betelgeuse, which unexpectedly became dimmer in 2019 but re-brightened in 2020, highlighting our poor understanding of these giant stars. Using a new implicit angle-dependent radiation transport module I developed in the moving-mesh code AREPO, I will explain how we can use AREPO - a code mostly used for cosmological simulations - to simulate realistic full-sphere 3D massive star envelope for the first time. I will highlight two scientific results: (1) multi-scale cooling-driven convection creating supergranulation reminiscent of solar convection, and (2) pulsation-lifted circumstellar material as an explanation for interacting supernovae. These results are only the starting point of the AREPO-Star project, aimed at simulating the multi-scale 3D physics of massive stars, binaries, and associated transients across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.