Institute for Advanced Study Astrophysics Seminar

Massive stars remain a centerpiece of astrophysical research, enriching their galactic environments throughout their dynamic lives and often-explosive ends, and leaving behind compact objects as remnants. The past decade has yielded great progress in stellar evolution theory due to the proliferation of wide-spread, open-source stellar evolution models in spherical symmetry (1D). Yet at the same time, detailed surveys which watch stars change in time and follow their deaths in real-time are revealing the importance of intrinsically 3D processes across the stellar surface, such as subsurface convection, eruptive mass loss, and interactions with companions. Fortunately, computational capabilities have reached the level where physically realistic 3D Radiation-hydrodynamics models are achievable on dynamically relevant timescales. I will detail these advances and highlight our progress in the 3D modeling of the envelopes of evolved massive stars using the Radiation-Hydrodynamics capabilities of the Athena++ software. This work has yielded novel predictions for stellar variability, stellar eruptions and mass loss, and imprints of the 3D envelope structure on emission during supernova explosions. I will also discuss our efforts to translate insights from our 3D experiments into prescriptions for 1D stellar evolution codes which can bring this physics to bear on stars’ longer-timescale evolution.