TAPIR Seminar

Revival of the Fittest: Exploding Core-Collapse Supernovae

David Vartanyan, Graduate Student, Dept of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University,

Fifty years have lapsed since the early simulations of Colgate and White identified neutrino heating as key to powering core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). Yet, for over half a century, the mechanism for producing a robust CCSN explosion has endured as a scientific mystery. Outcome - explosion or dud - depends sensitively on the progenitor structure, the neutrino-matter microphysics, and macrophysical properties (e.g., rotation and velocity perturbations). I will present recently published results, using our multidimensional hydro/radiative transfer code FORNAX, of one of the first 3D simulations of a CCSN progenitor with detailed microphysics and state of the art neutrino transport. Our model explodes within 100 milliseconds, and is estimated to accumulate energy at a rate of 0.5 Bethe (10^50 erg) over 2 seconds. The vigorous explosion highlights the crucial dependence on input physics and illustrates recent communal progress on understanding CCSNe.

Event Sponsors:

Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity and Cosmology (TAPIR) - More events from this Sponsor

For more information, please contact JoAnn Boyd by phone at 4280 or by email at [email protected].