Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
201,683 studies31 sourcesUpdated 18 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0The Astrophysical Journal

Turbulent Viscosity in Line-driven Stellar Winds

  • Matías Montesinos1
  • Michel Curé2
  • Ignacio Araya3
  • Roberto O. J. Venero4,5
5 affiliations
  1. 1Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María
  2. 2Universidad de Valparaíso
  3. 3Centro Multidisciplinario de Física
  4. 4Universidad Nacional de La Plata
  5. 5Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

Radiation-driven winds from massive stars generate powerful outflows known to be intrinsically turbulent. Despite this, standard hydrodynamic models have historically restricted the application of macroscopic turbulent viscosity to rotationally supported disks, neglecting its dynamic role in the supersonic expansion regime of the wind. We evaluated the dynamical relevance of macroscopic turbulent momentum transport in accelerating line-driven stellar outflows of rotating B supergiants. We introduced a generalized strain-limited viscous prescription within a stable, time-dependent one-dimensional m-CAK hydrodynamic framework using the FARGO3D code. We compared inviscid, constant-viscosity, and strain-limited models to analyze their effects on the radial velocity, density stratification, mass-loss rate, and angular momentum transport. The strain-limited prescription produces a radially structured viscosity that primarily acts as a broad radial braking term. With the viscosity bounded through a prescribed maximum mixing length, the viscous acceleration remains subdominant to the total radiative acceleration but is dynamically relevant to the advective acceleration. In the strongest-viscosity model, the terminal velocity decreased by ∼39% and the mass-loss rate by ∼58% relative to the inviscid model in the stationary state. The flow remains radiatively driven, and angular-momentum transport remains dominated by advection, maintaining a quasi-conserving v ϕ ∝ r ⁻¹ scaling. Turbulent viscosity exerts a measurable dynamic effect on supersonic line-driven winds. When bounded by the local macroscopic strain, it modifies the radial momentum balance and the resulting mass-loss rate without forcing the wind into a disk-like regime of strong viscous angular-momentum redistribution.

Related

  1. Mass loss in AF supergiants: At the verge of the Eddington limit and still with weak line-driven winds
    J. Krtička, J. Kubát
    Astronomy & AstrophysicsPeer-reviewedPublisher termsSolar & stellar physicsCrossref
  2. Transonic Solutions for Recombination-driven Stellar Winds
    Ilan Strusberg, Re’em Sari, Jim Fuller
    The Astrophysical Journal LettersPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textSolar & stellar physicsCrossref
  3. Mass loss in AF supergiants: At the verge of the Eddington limit and still with weak line-driven winds
    Jiri Krticka, Jiri Kubat
    arXivPreprintCC BY 4.0Full textHigh-energy astrophysicsSolar & stellar physicsarXiv
  4. Radiation Pressure Instability-Driven Variability of Line-Driven Disk Winds in AGNs: Connection to Periodic Luminosity Variations and UFO Appearance
    Yutaro Kuroda, Ken Ohsuga, Mariko Nomura +1
    arXivPreprintCC BY 4.0Full textHigh-energy astrophysicsarXiv
  5. High-resolution Modeling of Coronae and Winds in Solar-type Stars with Varying Rotation Rates. II. Stellar Winds
    Yue-Hong 悦虹 Chen 陈, Julián D. Alvarado-Gómez, Xin Cheng +6
    The Astrophysical JournalPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textSolar & stellar physicsCrossref

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{montesinos2026turbulent,
  title = {{Turbulent Viscosity in Line-driven Stellar Winds}},
  author = {Matías Montesinos and Michel Curé and Ignacio Araya and Roberto O. J. Venero},
  journal = {The Astrophysical Journal},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/aeb114},
  url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aeb114},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Turbulent Viscosity in Line-driven Stellar Winds
AU  - Matías Montesinos
AU  - Michel Curé
AU  - Ignacio Araya
AU  - Roberto O. J. Venero
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/04
JO  - The Astrophysical Journal
DO  - 10.3847/1538-4357/aeb114
UR  - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aeb114
AB  - Radiation-driven winds from massive stars generate powerful outflows known to be intrinsically turbulent. Despite this, standard hydrodynamic models have historically restricted the application of macroscopic turbulent viscosity to rotationally supported disks, neglecting its dynamic role in the supersonic expansion regime of the wind. We evaluated the dynamical relevance of macroscopic turbulent momentum transport in accelerating line-driven stellar outflows of rotating B supergiants. We introduced a generalized strain-limited viscous prescription within a stable, time-dependent one-dimensional m-CAK hydrodynamic framework using the FARGO3D code. We compared inviscid, constant-viscosity, and strain-limited models to analyze their effects on the radial velocity, density stratification, mass-loss rate, and angular momentum transport. The strain-limited prescription produces a radially structured viscosity that primarily acts as a broad radial braking term. With the viscosity bounded through a prescribed maximum mixing length, the viscous acceleration remains subdominant to the total radiative acceleration but is dynamically relevant to the advective acceleration. In the strongest-viscosity model, the terminal velocity decreased by ∼39% and the mass-loss rate by ∼58% relative to the inviscid model in the stationary state. The flow remains radiatively driven, and angular-momentum transport remains dominated by advection, maintaining a quasi-conserving v ϕ ∝ r ⁻¹ scaling. Turbulent viscosity exerts a measurable dynamic effect on supersonic line-driven winds. When bounded by the local macroscopic strain, it modifies the radial momentum balance and the resulting mass-loss rate without forcing the wind into a disk-like regime of strong viscous angular-momentum redistribution.
SN  - 1538-4357
SN  - 0004-637X
ER  -