Project Description
The ambition of this project is to set out a two-dimensional stellar evolution code, which fully takes into account the effects of rotation, at any rate and in a self-consistent way.The difficult, but important point is that rotating stars are spheroidal and are never in hydrostatic equilibrium. They are pervaded by flows everywhere, even in the stably stratified radiative regions. These flows are essentially convective flows in thermally unstable regions (convection zones) and baroclinic flows in the radiative regions. These latter flows are grosso modo a differential rotation and a meridional circulation, with likely some small-scale turbulence. Radiative regions of non-rotating stars experience very little mixing (only due to microscopic phenomena). Rotation induces flows and therefore some mixing, well-known as "rotational mixing". This is a key feature of the evolution of rotating stars. Besides, these stars also oscillate, and astronomers would like to get from the oscillation frequencies some good constraints on the structure of these stars. The foregoing reasons and many others motivated us to construct a two-dimensional model of rotating stars that is kind enough to enlight us on the numerous questions we are wondering about...
Michel Rieutord
Documentation
You will find the user documentation in the wiki and in the manual, and the developer documentation in doxygen.Please send any question or comment to: ester-dev@irap.omp.eu.