Speaker
Prof.
Friedrich Roepke
(MPA Garching)
Description
Compact objects can change their state and configuration in combustion processes. In the case of white dwarfs, thermonuclear burning leads to an explosion as Type Ia supernova -- a phenomenon well studied in observations and theoretical models. Combustion processes, however, may also be adequate to describe phase transitions in neutron stars, in particular the "burning" of hadronic matter into strange quark matter. I will discuss the physical concepts of combustion and describe methods to model this phenomenon in large-scale numerical simulations. These techniques are then applied to thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs and to hypothetical "quark novae" transforming neutron stars into strange quark stars. While for Type Ia supernovae a wealth of observational data exists to validate these models, for quark novae only predictions for observables, such as neutrino signals, can be made.
Primary author
Prof.
Friedrich Roepke
(MPA Garching)
