This movie shows the envelope structures of an 80 solar mass star with initial rotating velocity of 50% of the critical value. Isocontours show the gas density while streamlines represent the flow velocity, and are colored according to the radiation energy density. Convection develops in the envelope and causes the envelope to be turbulent. Radiation driven outflow develops due to the helium opacity peak and rotation enhances the outflow rate. The outflow also carries away a significant fraction of the initial angular momentum in the convective region.

Science: Yan-Fei Jiang, Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute Lars Bildsten, University of California, Santa Barbara

Visualization: Joseph A. Insley, Argonne National Laboratory, and Northern Illinois University Visualization and Data Analysis Team, Argonne Leadership Computing Facility

This research used resources of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Watch the Demo below!