Radial Stellar Pulsation and Three-Dimensional Convection. III. Comparison of Two-Dimensional and Three-Dimensional Convection Effects on Radial Pulsation

Abstract

We have developed a multidimensional radiation hydrodynamics code to simulate the interaction of radial stellar pulsation and convection for full amplitude pulsating models. Convection is computed using large eddy simulations. Here we perform three-dimensional simulations of RR Lyrae stars for comparison with previously reported two-dimensional simulations. We find that the time dependent behavior of the peak convective flux on pulsation phase is very similar in both the two-dimensional and three-dimensional calculations. The growth rates of the pulsation in the two-dimensional calculations are about $0.1\%$ higher than in the three-dimensional calculations.The amplitude of the light curve for a 6500 K RR Lyrae model is essentially the same for our 2D and 3D calculations, as is the rising light curve. There are differences in slope at various times during falling light.