SECULAR STABILITY BEHAVIOR OF NUCLEAR BURNING BEFORE RELAXATION

The criterion for the secular stability of nuclear burning is revised for times shorter than the effective time of relaxation into diffusion . Using the Cattaneo equation for the heat flux, we show that before t he establishment of steady state resistive flow, conditions for the st ability of nuclear burning change of sign quasiperiodically, for any g iven value of the gravothermal specific heat. Implications of this res ult in calculations of nuclear fusion in accreting neutron star envelo pes are suggested.