MESA inlists for the paper Quantifying systematic uncertainties in white dwarf cooling age determinations

This repository contains the work directories for running the MESA models presented in the paper "Quantifying systematic uncertainties in white dwarf cooling age determinations".

1. Contents

• MESA model work directories
• 'wd_builder' work directory for creating initial white dwarf models
• 'all_compositions_fitted' directory containing Oxygen abundance profiles.

2.  Requirements

• MESA version: r23.05.1
• MESASDK version x86_64-linux-22.6.1.
• Proper environment variables must be set up before running MESA (see MESA documentation)

3.  Directory Structure

•  'all_compositions_fitted'

This directory contains Oxygen abundance profiles for 0.6 Msun white dwarf from various evolutionary models and asteroseismological studies. These profiles were used to inform the parameter space sampled in this work.

• 'wd_builder'

This directory contains inlists for the MESA tool 'wd_builder'. It uses an initial composition file 'composition.dat' to create an initial white dwarf model called 'saved.mod'.

•  'phase_sep'

This directory contains the inlists for white dwarf evolution, modified from the inlists of Bauer 2023. It uses the initial white dwarf model 'saved.mod' and creates an evolved, cooled white dwarf model at 3000K called 'final.mod'.

4.  Usage

•  Set up the MESA environment variables as per the MESA documentation.
•  Use the 'wd_builder' directory to create an initial white dwarf model:
  • Ensure 'composition.dat' is present in the directory.
  • Run the MESA 'wd_builder' tool to generate 'saved.mod'
• Use the 'phase_sep' directory to evolve the white dwarf model:
  • Copy or move 'saved.mod' to this directory.
  • Run the MESA evolution script to generate 'final.mod'.

5.  References

•  Bauer, E. B. (2023). MESA inlists for white dwarf evolution. Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/records/7846751

For more details on the research methodology and results, please refer to the full paper: "Quantifying systematic uncertainties in white dwarf cooling age determinations".