The Thermonuclear Explosion Of Chandrasekhar Mass White Dwarfs

The flame born in the deep interior of a white dwarf that becomes a Type Ia supernova is subject to several instabilities. We briefly review these instabilities and the corresponding flame acceleration. We discuss the conditions necessary for each of the currently proposed explosion mechanisms and the attendant uncertainties. A grid of critical masses for detonation in the range $10^7$ - $2 \times 10^9$ g cm$^{-3}$ is calculated and its sensitivity to composition explored. Prompt detonations are physically improbable and appear unlikely on observational grounds. Simple deflagrations require some means of boosting the flame speed beyond what currently exists in the literature. ``Active turbulent combustion'' and multi-point ignition are presented as two plausible ways of doing this. A deflagration that moves at the ``Sharp-Wheeler'' speed, $0.1 g_{\rm eff} t$, is calculated in one dimension and shows that a healthy explosion is possible in a simple deflagration if the front moves with the speed of the fastest floating bubbles. The relevance of the transition to the ``distributed burning regime'' is discussed for delayed detonations. No model emerges without difficulties, but detonation in the distributed regime is plausible, will produce intermediate mass elements, and warrants further study.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures included, uses aaspp4.sty. Submitted to Ap

Small-scale Interaction of Turbulence with Thermonuclear Flames in Type Ia Supernovae

Microscopic turbulence-flame interactions of thermonuclear fusion flames occuring in Type Ia Supernovae were studied by means of incompressible direct numerical simulations with a highly simplified flame description. The flame is treated as a single diffusive scalar field with a nonlinear source term. It is characterized by its Prandtl number, Pr << 1, and laminar flame speed, S_L. We find that if S_L ~ u', where u' is the rms amplitude of turbulent velocity fluctuations, the local flame propagation speed does not significantly deviate from S_L even in the presence of velocity fluctuations on scales below the laminar flame thickness. This result is interpreted in the context of subgrid-scale modeling of supernova explosions and the mechanism for deflagration-detonation-transitions.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Astrophys.

Magnetization control of the nematicity direction and nodal points in a superconducting doped topological insulator

We study the effects of magnetization on the properties of the doped topological insulator with nematic superconductivity. We found that the direction of the in-plane magnetization fixes the direction of the nematicity in the system. The chiral state is more favorable than the nematic state for large values of out-of-plane magnetization. Overall, the critical temperature of the nematic state is resilient against magnetization. We explore the spectrum of the system with the pinned direction of the nematic order parameter $\Delta_{y}$ in details. Without magnetization, there is a full gap in the spectrum. At strong enough out-of-plane $m_z$ or orthogonal in-plane $m_x$ magnetization, the spectrum is closed at the nodal points that are split by the magnetization. Flat Majorana surface states connect such split bulk nodal points. Parallel magnetization $m_y$ lifts nodal points and opens a full gap in the spectrum. We discuss relevant experiments and propose experimental verifications of our theory

Primary Sequences of Protein-Like Copolymers: Levy Flight Type Long Range Correlations

We consider the statistical properties of primary sequences of two-letter HP copolymers (H for hydrophobic and P for polar) designed to have water soluble globular conformations with H monomers shielded from water inside the shell of P monomers. We show, both by computer simulations and by exact analytical calculation, that for large globules and flexible polymers such sequences exhibit long-range correlations which can be described by Levy-flight statistics.Comment: 4 pages, including 2 figures; several references added, some formulations improve

Nucleon-nucleon wave function with short-range nodes and high-energy deuteron photodisintegration

We review a concept of the Moscow potential (MP) of the $NN$ interaction. On the basis of this concept we derive by quantum inversion optical partial potentials from the modern partial-wave analysis (PWA) data and deuteron properties. Point-form (PF) relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is applied to the two-body deuteron photodisintegration. Calculations of the cross-section angular distributions cover photon energies between 1.1 and 2.5 GeV. Good agreement between our theory and recent experimental data confirms the concept of deep attractive Moscow potential with forbidden $S$- and $P$-states.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figures. typos, extended formalism, review of the Moscow potential model adde

Reconstruction of the optical potential from scattering data

We propose a method for reconstruction of the optical potential from scattering data. The algorithm is a two-step procedure. In the first step the real part of the potential is determined analytically via solution of the Marchenko equation. At this point we use a diagonal Pad\'{e} approximant of the corresponding unitary $S$-matrix. In the second step the imaginary part of the potential is determined via the phase equation of the variable phase approach. We assume that the real and the imaginary parts of the optical potential are proportional. We use the phase equation to calculate the proportionality coefficient. A numerical algorithm is developed for a single and for coupled partial waves. The developed procedure is applied to analysis of $^{1}S_{0}$ $NN$, $^{3}SD_{1}$ $NN$, $P31$ $\pi^{-} N$ and $S01$ $K^{+}N$ data.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, results of nucl-th/0410092 are refined, some new results are presente

Thermonuclear Supernovae: Simulations of the Deflagration Stage and Their Implications

Large-scale three-dimensional numerical simulations of the deflagration stage of a thermonuclear supernova explosion show the formation and evolution of a highly convoluted turbulent flame in a gravitational field of an expanding carbon-oxygen white dwarf. The flame dynamics is dominated by the gravity-induced Rayleigh-Taylor instability that controls the burning rate. The thermonuclear deflagration releases enough energy to produce a healthy explosion. The turbulent flame, however, leaves large amounts of unburnt and partially burnt material near the star center, whereas observations imply these materials only in outer layers. This disagreement could be resolved if the deflagration triggers a detonation.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. To appear in Science, January 200

On the small-scale stability of thermonuclear flames in Type Ia supernovae

We present a numerical model which allows us to investigate thermonuclear flames in Type Ia supernova explosions. The model is based on a finite-volume explicit hydrodynamics solver employing PPM. Using the level-set technique combined with in-cell reconstruction and flux-splitting schemes we are able to describe the flame in the discontinuity approximation. We apply our implementation to flame propagation in Chandrasekhar-mass Type Ia supernova models. In particular we concentrate on intermediate scales between the flame width and the Gibson-scale, where the burning front is subject to the Landau-Darrieus instability. We are able to reproduce the theoretical prediction on the growth rates of perturbations in the linear regime and observe the stabilization of the flame in a cellular shape. The increase of the mean burning velocity due to the enlarged flame surface is measured. Results of our simulation are in agreement with semianalytical studies.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, Uses AASTEX, emulateapj5.sty, onecolfloat.sty. Replaced with accepted version (ApJ), Figures 1 and 3 are ne

Dynamics of Collapse of flexible Polyelectrolytes and Polyampholytes

We provide a theory for the dynamics of collapse of strongly charged polyelectrolytes (PEs) and flexible polyampholytes (PAs) using Langevin equation. After the initial stage, in which counterions condense onto PE, the mechanism of approach to the globular state is similar for PE and PA. In both instances, metastable pearl-necklace structures form in characteristic time scale that is proportional to N^{4/5} where N is the number of monomers. The late stage of collapse occurs by merger of clusters with the largest one growing at the expense of smaller ones (Lifshitz- Slyozov mechanism). The time scale for this process T_{COLL} N. Simulations are used to support the proposed collapse mechanism for PA and PE.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure