Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-qxsvm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-06T13:18:54.273Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the Theoretical Treatment of Stellar Convection Zones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

Wasaburo Unno*
Affiliation:
University of Tokyo

Extract

The theory of stellar convection zones has met three difficult problems. They are non-linearity, non-locality, and non-greyness of radiative transport. Non-linearity is inherent in turbulence. Non-locality is due to the nature of convection, that larger eddies are apt to be more unstable as indicated by the fourth-power dependence of the Rayleigh number on the vertical dimension. Inhomo-geneity and anisotropy of convection, penetration into stable layers, are the consequences. Non-grey radiative transfer through an eddy element is important in a convective atmosphere. In a preceding paper, the author has developed a theory which includes all these effects, using the representative eddy approximation. The emphasis in that paper was put rather in the non-locality and in the radiative non-greyness ; the treatment of non-linearity has been considered mainly in much earlier investigations. In the present note, we shall study how the representative eddy approximation is reconciled with the spectral theory of turbulence, and we shall determine the effective Reynolds and Péclet numbers, the coupling constants appearing in the eddy transport coefficients.

Type
Contributions
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Unno, W., Publ. Astr. Soc. Japan, 21, 240 (1969).Google Scholar
2 Wasiutynski, J., Astrophys. Norw., 4, 1 (1946).Google Scholar
3 Unno, W., Pubi. Astr. Soc. Japan, 13, 276 (1961).Google Scholar
4 Pardang, J., ‘Notes on the 1969 Summer Study Program in Geophysical Fluid Pynamics at the Woods Hole Océanographie Institution’, Vol. 2, 1969, p.103.Google Scholar
5 Yamaguchi, S., Pubi. Astr. Soc. Japan, 15, 412 (1963).Google Scholar
6 Heisenberg, W., Z. Phys., 124, 628 (1948).Google Scholar
7 Ledoux, P., Schwarzschild, M. and Spiegel, E. A., Astrophys. J., 133, 184 (1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 Batchelor, G. K., ‘The Theory of Homogeneous Turbulence’, Cambridge University Press, London 1953, p.167.Google Scholar