Thermal Convection in Stars and in Their Atmosphere

Friedrich Kupka

Published 2020-01-30Version 1

Thermal convection is one of the main mechanisms of heat transport and mixing in stars in general and also in the photospheric layers which emit the radiation that we observe with astronomical instruments. The present lecture notes first introduce the role of convection in astrophysics and explain the basic physics of convection. This is followed by an overview on the modelling of convection. Challenges and pitfalls in numerical simulation based modelling are discussed subsequently. Finally, a particular application for the previously introduced concepts is described in more detail: the study of convective overshooting into stably stratified layers around convection zones in stars.