Solutions to the Core-Collapse Supernova Problem from Theory

Princeton University, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Core-collapse supernovae dramatically announce the deaths of massive stars and the births of neutron stars and black holes. During this violent process, many different types of physics come into play to determine whether and how the star explodes. However, the precise mechanism of explosion has not been unambiguously determined, and this fifty-year-old conundrum is one of the central remaining unsolved problems in theoretical astrophysics.   A research team at Princeton University will conduct three-dimensional computer simulations of core-collapse supernovae with the goal of determining the explosion mechanisms, energies, and the morphologies and masses of the residual neutron stars left after the explosion.  The three-dimensional models of the core-collapse explosion process will be among the most complete, detailed, and realistic ever performed and will serve as crucial benchmarks for comparisons with observations of supernovae and their products.  These simulations produce video products, which the researchers will adapt into talks and displays for the public. The investigators will conduct three-dimensional radiation/hydrodynamic simulations of core-collapse supernovae using the newly-developed and published code FORNAX, which incorporates state-of-the-art microphysics and methodologies.   The research team has found that all their models with realistic physics explode by the neutrino heating mechanism.  They will build on this result to further study the effects of many-body corrections to neutrino-nucleon cross sections, pre-collapse seed perturbations, general relativity, and inelastic neutrino-electron and neutrino-nucleon scattering on the supernova explosions.  In addition, this proposal supports the experimental nuclear physics program by exploring nucleosynthesis in astrophysical explosions, the properties of the neutrino, and the equation of state and phases of dense nuclear matter.  A synoptic version of the numerical results derived will be made available on the web.