A SIMPLE SCHEME TO IMPLEMENT A NONLOCAL TURBULENT CONVECTION MODEL FOR CONVECTIVE OVERSHOOT MIXING

Abstract

ABSTRACT Classical “ballistic” overshoot models show some contradictions and are not consistent with numerical simulations and asteroseismic studies. Asteroseismic studies imply that overshoot is a weak mixing process. A diffusion model is suitable to deal with it. The form of diffusion coefficient in a diffusion model is crucial. Because overshoot mixing is related to convective heat transport (i.e., entropy mixing), there should be some similarity between them. A recent overshoot mixing model shows consistency between composition mixing and entropy mixing in the overshoot region. A prerequisite to apply the model is to know the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy. The dissipation rate can be worked out by solving turbulent convection models (TCMs). But it is difficult to apply TCMs because of some numerical problems and the enormous time cost. In order to find a convenient way, we have used the asymptotic solution and simplified the TCM to a single linear equation for turbulent kinetic energy. This linear model is easy to implement in calculations of stellar evolution with negligible extra time cost. We have tested the linear model in stellar evolution, and have found that it can well reproduce the turbulent kinetic energy profile of the full TCM, as well as the diffusion coefficient, abundance profile, and stellar evolutionary tracks. We have also studied the effects of different values of the model parameters and have found that the effect due to the modification of temperature gradient in the overshoot region is slight.