News
i-Process Research Featured in Quanta Magazine
2 July 2025 – The intermediate neutron-capture process (i-process) has been a key focus of our CaNPAN activities in advancing our understanding of how nature makes heavy elements through dynamic stellar nucleosynthesis. The recent article in Quanta Magazine Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms tells the story to a broader audience how theoretical astrophysics simulations and new nuclear physics experiments converge to reveal the complexities of element formation in stars.
Stellar Hydro Days VI at the University of Victoria
May 12 - 16, 2025 – The sixth installment of Stellar Hydro Days was held at the University of Victoria, continuing the tradition of no-frills workshops focused on 2D/3D hydrodynamic simulations and processes in stellar interiors. The five-day meeting gathered experts in the field and fostered in-depth discussions on topics including 3D macrophysics, convective boundary mixing, internal gravity waves, and asteroseismology. The workshop featured a dynamic mix of long-form lectures, research presentations, poster sessions, and breakout discussions designed to bridge 3D hydrodynamic simulations with observational diagnostics and 1D stellar evolution models.
2024 Science Year in Retrospect
20 December 2024 – Our group made again contributions in 2024 to understanding 3D macro physics of stars through hydrodynamic simulations and to understanding the formation of elements in stars. Our PPMstar team published three major 3D hydro studies advancing our understanding of stellar convection. We demonstrated how radiation pressure and diffusion in massive main-sequence stars lead to realistic 1D equilibrium models, and showed how core convection excites internal gravity waves with power spectra similar to recent observations. We also presented the first full-sphere 3D simulations of core helium burning stars, providing new insights into controversial semiconvective layers. On the element formation front, based on our earlier impact studies of the intermediate neutron capture (i) process we contributed simulations using the first experimental constraints on the ¹³⁹Ba(n,γ)¹⁴⁰Ba reaction which is key for understanding the i process. We also helped to demonstrate that thallium-208 could serve as a real-time indicator of heavy element production in neutron star mergers, and we proposed a solution to the lithium-rich red giant mystery by showing how stellar mixing transitions from lithium destruction to production as stars approach the RGB tip.
New ARC Director Appointment
July 2024 – I have been appointed as the new Director of the Astronomical Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Victoria. The ARC serves as a hub for astronomical research and education, bringing together faculty, students, and researchers working across diverse areas of astrophysics and astronomy. In this role, I look forward to continuing to foster collaborative research, support student training, and strengthen the Centre’s contributions to the astronomical community.
CaNPAN Hosted its 2024 Annual Meeting at TRIUMF
14 May 2024 – The Canadian Nuclear Physics for Astrophysics Network held its Annual Meeting 2024 this month at TRIUMF in Vancouver. The three-day meeting fostered international multidisciplinary collaboration, with the first day dedicated to student and postdoc research presentations, professional development, and community building. See highlight on IReNA/JINA web page.
TexaScale runs featured on HPCwire
13 Apr 2024 – Our PPMstar team participated in February 2024 in the TexaScale event atain. This event was organized by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and featured a series of runs on the Frontera supercomputer. The runs were part of our ongoing effort to understand how exactly convection, internal gravity waves and mixing works in massive main-sequence stars, and were featured in an article on HPCwire | X (Twitter) post.
2023 Science Year in Retrospect
20 December 2023 – Our PPMstar team launched a major new research program with the first paper in our massive main-sequence star simulation series, establishing scaling relations for mixing and quantifying internal gravity wave effects in the core-envelope boundary region of a 25 M⊙ star. We extended our 3D hydro simulations to red giant branch stars, presenting the first simulations of internal gravity wave excitation and propagation in their radiative interiors, and to supermassive Population III stars, providing the first 3D simulations of core convection in radiation pressure-dominated interiors of 10⁴ M⊙ stars. We also contributed NuDocker to enhance the MESA stellar evolution code.