Thermohaline Convection in Main Sequence Stars

Abstract

AbstractThermohaline convection is a well known subject in oceanography, which has long been put aside in stellar physics. In the ocean, it occurs when warm salted layers sit on top of cool and less salted ones. Then the salted water rapidly diffuses downwards even in the presence of stabilizing temperature gradients, due to double diffusion between the falling blobs and their surroundings. A similar process may occur in stars in case of inverse μ-gradients in a thermally stabilized medium. Here we describe this process and some of its stellar applications.