Numerical studies of nonspherical carbon combustion models

We have performed a set of axisymmetric hydrodynamic calculations of the core carbon flash, which incorporate the treatment of two-dimensional convective flow without the need of a phenomenological theory of convection. Our computations which were done using a spherical coordinate system with 100 radial and 30 angular grid points show that, in the beginning, the nuclear burning slowly (roughly-equal 0.2 x speed of sound) propagates outward from the center of the star in the form of a very nonspherical ''salt finger'' shaped combustion front