{"id":32,"date":"2015-04-17T11:38:29","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T11:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/?p=32"},"modified":"2015-04-17T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T12:34:08","slug":"semi-convection-in-stars-and-planets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/2015\/04\/17\/semi-convection-in-stars-and-planets\/","title":{"rendered":"Semi-convection in stars and planets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The interiors of stars and planets are often subject to double-diffusive instabilities, because temperature diffuses much more rapidly than either momentum or chemical composition.\u00a0 Near the cores of massive stars and giant planets, a stabilizing vertical gradient of composition can inhibit thermal convection, but may still allow a type of double-diffusive convection known as &#8220;semi-convection&#8221;.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-layers.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-layers-300x126.png\" alt=\"DDC-layers\" width=\"300\" height=\"126\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-layers-300x126.png 300w, https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-layers.png 614w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vertical profiles of temperature, composition, and density in a semi-convective region. Initially linear profiles (dashed) spontaneously develop into a staircase of layers (solid).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under certain conditions, a semi-convective region can spontaneously develop into layered convection, which leads to an enormous increase in the transport of heat and composition (Wood et al. 2013, ApJ, 768, 157).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4\" style=\"width: 272px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-dens.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-dens-272x300.jpg\" alt=\"Density perturbations at the interface between semi-convective layers.\" width=\"272\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-dens-272x300.jpg 272w, https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/files\/2015\/04\/DDC-dens.jpg 711w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 272px) 100vw, 272px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Density perturbations at the interface between semi-convective layers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>My research concerns the transport of heat and composition through layered convection, and its impact on the internal structure of stars and planets.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The interiors of stars and planets are often subject to double-diffusive instabilities, because temperature diffuses much more rapidly than either momentum or chemical composition.\u00a0 Near the cores of massive stars and giant planets, a stabilizing vertical gradient of composition can inhibit thermal convection, but may still allow a type of double-diffusive convection known as &#8220;semi-convection&#8221;. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/2015\/04\/17\/semi-convection-in-stars-and-planets\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Semi-convection in stars and planets<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":874,"featured_media":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,4],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-convection","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staff.ncl.ac.uk\/toby.wood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}