Stellar Opacity [electronic resource].
- Published:
- Washington, D.C. : United States. Dept. of Energy, 1999.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy. - Physical Description:
- 23p : digital, PDF file
- Additional Creators:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States. Department of Energy, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Access Online
- Restrictions on Access:
- Free-to-read Unrestricted online access
- Summary:
- The monochromatic opacity, κ{sub v}, quantifies the property of a material to remove energy of frequency v from a radiation field. A harmonic average of κ{sub v}, known as the Rosseland mean, κ{sub R}, is frequently used to simplify the calculation of energy transport in stars. The term ''opacity'' is commonly understood to refer to κ{sub R}. Opacity plays an important role in stellar modeling because for most stars radiation is the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the nuclear burning region in the core to the surface. Depending on the mass, convection and electron thermal conduction can also be important modes of stellar energy transport. The efficiency of energy transport is related to the temperature gradient, which is directly proportional to the mean radiative opacity in radiation dominated regions. When the radiative opacity is large, convection can become the more efficient energy transport mechanism. Electron conductive opacity, the resistance of matter to thermal conduction, is inversely proportional to electron thermal conductivity. Thermal conduction becomes the dominant mode of energy transport at high density and low temperature.
- Report Numbers:
- E 1.99:ucrl-jc-137066
ucrl-jc-137066 - Subject(s):
- Other Subject(s):
- Note:
- Published through SciTech Connect.
11/07/1999.
"ucrl-jc-137066"
American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, Dec 13 - Dec 17, 1999.
Rogers, F J; Iglesias, C A. - Funding Information:
- W-7405-ENG-48
View MARC record | catkey: 13825281