Snapshot of ambipolar diffusion at t = 200 yr. (a) Relative velocity between plasma and neutrons (ambipolar diffusion velocity) v_amb in units of cm s⁻¹. (b) Neutron velocity v_n in units of cm s⁻¹. (c) Rate of β-reactions Γ in units of s⁻¹ cm⁻³ (red corresponds to neutron production, and blue corresponds to electron–proton production). (d) Ambipolar heating rate ﹩{\dot{q}}_{\mathrm{amb}}﹩ in units of erg s⁻¹ cm⁻³. The axes are the same as in Figure 1. The dashed white curves are the contours of ρ = ρ_core and ρ = ρ_drip. The animation of this figure shows the sequence from t = 0–700 yr. The animation real-time duration is 15 s.

(An animation of this figure is available in the online article.)

(An animation of this figure is available.)

The video/animation of this figure is available in the online journal.