Sunday, 11 January 2009
The Effects of Differential Rotation on 1-2 Solar Mass Stars
Phoenix Convention Center
To fully understand the nature of stars we must first know their internal structure. If this were known we could better understand how and why stars, more importantly our sun behave the way they do. The internal structure and the internal distribution of angular momentum of our sun are known. There are two conservative rotation laws used to express the angular velocity as a function of the perpendicular distance from the equatorial plane. None of this information is available for stars using one of the conservative rotation laws. This rotation law concentrates the angular momentum in the outer portions of the star and has not been tested for stars with low masses. The problem is using a new Self Consistent Field (SCF) Method to analyze stars within one to two solar masses and to determine if differential rotation effects the internal structure. The SCF method is a two-step iterative process used to produce models describing the internal structure of rotating stars. The SCF method is ran using one-dimensional functions for temperature and pressure distributions. For both 1 and 2 solar mass stars deep interior properties; temperature, pressure, and density were not sensitive to change. The convective envelope deepened as angular momentum increases. This will cause a rise in lithium destruction in the interior of stars including our sun. As lithium is one of the elements used to make up planets that surround stars.
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