A model of Mira's cometary head/tail entering the Local Bubble

Abstract

We model the cometary structure around Mira as the interaction of an AGB wind from Mira A, and a streaming environment. Our simulations introduce the following new element: we assume that after 200 kyr of evolution in a dense environment Mira entered the Local Bubble (low density coronal gas). As Mira enters the bubble, the head of the comet expands quite rapidly, while the tail remains well collimated for a 100 kyr timescale. The result is a broad-head/narrow-tail structure that resembles the observed morphology of Mira's comet. The simulations were carried out with our new adaptive grid code WALICXE, which is described in detail.

12 pages, 8 figures (4 in color). Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (6)

• PLUTO: a Numerical Code for Computational Astrophysics
• Athena: A New Code for Astrophysical MHD
• It's a wonderful tail: the mass loss history of Mira
• Discovery of an HI Counterpart to the Extended Tail of Mira
• Cometary Astropause of Mira Revealed in the Far-Infrared
• A latitude-dependent wind model for Mira's cometary head

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• Efficient magnetohydrodynamic modelling of the time-evolving corona by COCONUT
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• Discovery of an optical cocoon tail behind the runaway HD 185806
• Dynamical modeling and the interactions with the ISM