289 research outputs found
A Rectangular Area Filling Display System Architecture
A display system architecture which has rectangular area filling as its primitive operation is presented. It is shown that lines can be drawn significantly faster while rendition of filled boxes shows an O(n^2) speed improvement. Furthermore filled polygons can be rendered with an O(n) speed improvement.
Implementation of this rectangular area filling architecture is discussed and refined. A custom
VLSI integrated circuit is currently being designed to implement this rectangular area filling architecture
and at the same time reduce the display memory system video refresh bandwidth requirements
Gas Dynamics of the Nickel-56 Decay Heating in Pair-Instability Supernovae
Very massive 140-260 Msun stars can die as highly-energetic pair-instability
supernovae (PI SNe) with energies of up to 100 times those of core-collapse SNe
that can completely destroy the star, leaving no compact remnant behind. These
explosions can synthesize Msun of radioactive Ni56, which can cause
them to rebrighten at later times when photons due to Ni56 decay diffuse out of
the ejecta. However, heat from the decay of such large masses of Ni56 could
also drive important dynamical effects deep in the ejecta that are capable of
mixing elements and affecting the observational signatures of these events. We
have now investigated the dynamical effect of Ni56 heating on PI SN ejecta with
high-resolution two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations performed with the
CASTRO code. We find that expansion of the hot Ni56 bubble forms a shell at the
base of the silicon layer of the ejecta about 200 days after the explosion but
that no hydrodynamical instabilities develop that would mix Ni56 with the
Si/O-rich ejecta. However, while the dynamical effects of Ni56 heating may be
weak they could affect the observational signatures of some PI SNe by diverting
decay energy into internal expansion of the ejecta at the expense of
rebrightening at later times.Comment: Accepted to ApJ, 14 page
Radiation Transport Simulations of Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae
Massive stars of helium cores of 35-65 Msun eventually encounter the
electron/positron creation instability, and it triggers explosive carbon or
oxygen burning that produces several thermonuclear eruptions. The resulting
catastrophe collisions of eruptive shells sometimes produce luminous transients
with peak luminosity of erg/sec, known as pulsational
pair-instability supernovae (PPISNe). Previous 2D simulations of colliding
shells show the development of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities and mixing.
Here we present radiation hydrodynamic PPISNe simulations of a 110 Msun
solar-metallicity star that was promising to produce a superluminous transit in
the early work. Our comprehensive study contains a suite of one-, two-, and
three-dimensional models. We discuss the impact of dimensionality and fluid
instabilities on the resulting light curves. The results show the RT mixing
found in previous multidimensional hydro studies transforms into a thin and
distorted shell due to radiative cooling. Radiation from the wiggly shell peaks
at its bolometric light curve of erg/sec, lasting about
150 days and following with a plateau of erg/sec for
another two hundred days before it fades away. The total radiation energy
emitted from colliding shells is erg, which is of the kinetic energy of the major eruption. The dimensional effects also
manifest on the physical properties, such as irregularity and thickness of the
shell. Our study suggests PPISNe is a promising candidate of luminous SNe, the
radiation of which originates from colliding shells with a homogeneous mixing
of ejecta.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 16 pages, comments are welcom
On the Maximum Mass of Accreting Primordial Supermassive Stars
Supermassive primordial stars are suspected to be the progenitors of the most
massive quasars at z~6. Previous studies of such stars were either unable to
resolve hydrodynamical timescales or considered stars in isolation, not in the
extreme accretion flows in which they actually form. Therefore, they could not
self-consistently predict their final masses at collapse, or those of the
resulting supermassive black hole seeds, but rather invoked comparison to
simple polytropic models. Here, we systematically examine the birth, evolution
and collapse of accreting non-rotating supermassive stars under accretion rates
of 0.01-10 solar masses per year, using the stellar evolution code KEPLER. Our
approach includes post-Newtonian corrections to the stellar structure and an
adaptive nuclear network, and can transition to following the hydrodynamic
evolution of supermassive stars after they encounter the general relativistic
instability. We find that this instability triggers the collapse of the star at
masses of 150,000-330,000 solar masses for accretion rates of 0.1-10 solar
masses per year, and that the final mass of the star scales roughly
logarithmically with the rate. The structure of the star, and thus its
stability against collapse, is sensitive to the treatment of convection, and
the heat content of the outer accreted envelope. Comparison with other codes
suggests differences here may lead to small deviations in the evolutionary
state of the star as a function of time, that worsen with accretion rate. Since
the general relativistic instability leads to the immediate death of these
stars, our models place an upper limit on the masses of the first quasars at
birth.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted ApJ letter
The Evolution of Supermassive Population III Stars
Supermassive primordial stars forming in atomically-cooled halos at are currently thought to be the progenitors of the earliest quasars
in the Universe. In this picture, the star evolves under accretion rates of
yr until the general relativistic instability
triggers its collapse to a black hole at masses of .
However, the ability of the accretion flow to sustain such high rates depends
crucially on the photospheric properties of the accreting star, because its
ionising radiation could reduce or even halt accretion. Here we present new
models of supermassive Population III protostars accreting at rates yr, computed with the GENEVA stellar evolution code
including general relativistic corrections to the internal structure. We use
the polytropic stability criterion to estimate the mass at which the collapse
occurs, which has been shown to give a lower limit of the actual mass at
collapse in recent hydrodynamic simulations. We find that at accretion rates
higher than yr the stars evolve as red, cool
supergiants with surface temperatures below K towards masses
, and become blue and hot, with surface temperatures above K,
only for rates yr. Compared to previous
studies, our results extend the range of masses and accretion rates at which
the ionising feedback remains weak, reinforcing the case for direct collapse as
the origin of the first quasars
On the Rotation of Supermassive Stars
Supermassive stars born from pristine gas in atomically-cooled haloes are
thought to be the progenitors of supermassive black holes at high redshifts.
However, the way they accrete their mass is still an unsolved problem. In
particular, for accretion to proceed, a large amount of angular momentum has to
be extracted from the collapsing gas. Here, we investigate the constraints
stellar evolution imposes on this angular momentum problem. We present an
evolution model of a supermassive Population III star including simultaneously
accretion and rotation. We find that, for supermassive stars to form by
accretion, the accreted angular momentum has to be about 1% of the Keplerian
angular momentum. This tight constraint comes from the -limit, at
which the combination of radiation pressure and centrifugal force cancels
gravity. It implies that supermassive stars are slow rotators, with a surface
velocity less than 10-20% of their first critical velocity, at which the
centrifugal force alone cancels gravity. At such low velocities, the
deformation of the star due to rotation is negligible
How the First Stars Regulated Star Formation. II. Enrichment by Nearby Supernovae
Metals from Population III (Pop III) supernovae led to the formation of less
massive Pop II stars in the early universe, altering the course of evolution of
primeval galaxies and cosmological reionization. There are a variety of
scenarios in which heavy elements from the first supernovae were taken up into
second-generation stars, but cosmological simulations only model them on the
largest scales. We present small-scale, high-resolution simulations of the
chemical enrichment of a primordial halo by a nearby supernova after partial
evaporation by the progenitor star. We find that ejecta from the explosion
crash into and mix violently with ablative flows driven off the halo by the
star, creating dense, enriched clumps capable of collapsing into Pop II stars.
Metals may mix less efficiently with the partially exposed core of the halo, so
it might form either Pop III or Pop II stars. Both Pop II and III stars may
thus form after the collision if the ejecta do not strip all the gas from the
halo. The partial evaporation of the halo prior to the explosion is crucial to
its later enrichment by the supernova.Comment: Accepted to Ap
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