21,595 research outputs found
Radiative transfer with scattering for domain-decomposed 3D MHD simulations of cool stellar atmospheres
We present the implementation of a radiative transfer solver with coherent
scattering in the new BIFROST code for radiative magneto-hydrodynamical (MHD)
simulations of stellar surface convection. The code is fully parallelized using
MPI domain decomposition, which allows for large grid sizes and improved
resolution of hydrodynamical structures. We apply the code to simulate the
surface granulation in a solar-type star, ignoring magnetic fields, and
investigate the importance of coherent scattering for the atmospheric
structure. A scattering term is added to the radiative transfer equation,
requiring an iterative computation of the radiation field. We use a
short-characteristics-based Gauss-Seidel acceleration scheme to compute
radiative flux divergences for the energy equation. The effects of coherent
scattering are tested by comparing the temperature stratification of three 3D
time-dependent hydrodynamical atmosphere models of a solar-type star: without
scattering, with continuum scattering only, and with both continuum and line
scattering. We show that continuum scattering does not have a significant
impact on the photospheric temperature structure for a star like the Sun.
Including scattering in line-blanketing, however, leads to a decrease of
temperatures by about 350\,K below log tau < -4. The effect is opposite to that
of 1D hydrostatic models in radiative equilibrium, where scattering reduces the
cooling effect of strong LTE lines in the higher layers of the photosphere.
Coherent line scattering also changes the temperature distribution in the high
atmosphere, where we observe stronger fluctuations compared to a treatment of
lines as true absorbers.Comment: A&A, in pres
Time-dependent hydrogen ionisation in the solar chromosphere. I: Methods and first results
An approximate method for solving the rate equations for the hydrogen
populations was extended and implemented in the three-dimensional radiation
(magneto-)hydrodynamics code CO5BOLD. The method is based on a model atom with
six energy levels and fixed radiative rates. It has been tested extensively in
one-dimensional simulations. The extended method has been used to create a
three-dimensional model that extends from the upper convection zone to the
chromosphere. The ionisation degree of hydrogen in our time-dependent
simulation is comparable to the corresponding equilibrium value up to 500 km
above optical depth unity. Above this height, the non-equilibrium ionisation
degree is fairly constant over time and space, and tends to be at a value set
by hot propagating shock waves. The hydrogen level populations and electron
density are much more constant than the corresponding values for statistical
equilibrium, too. In contrast, the equilibrium ionisation degree varies by more
than 20 orders of magnitude between hot, shocked regions and cool, non-shocked
regions. The simulation shows for the first time in 3D that the chromospheric
hydrogen ionisation degree and electron density cannot be calculated in
equilibrium. Our simulation can provide realistic values of those quantities
for detailed radiative transfer computations.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
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