Radial stellar pulsation and three-dimensional convection. III. Comparison of two-dimensional and three-dimensional convection effects on radial pulsation

We have developed a multi-dimensional 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 (3D) simulations of RR Lyrae stars for comparison with previously reported 2D simulations. We find that the time-dependent behavior of the peak convective flux on pulsation phase is very similar in both the 2D and 3D calculations. The growth rates of the pulsation in the 2D calculations are about 0.1% higher than in the 3D 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 the slope at various times during falling light.