Theory of core-collapse supernovae

By Hans-Thomas Janka, K. Langanke, Andreas Marek, G. Mart'inez-Pinedo, B. M. M. F. Astrophysics, G. Gsi, D. Darmstadt. 2006

724 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Advances in our understanding and the modeling of stellar core-collapse and supernova explosions over the past 15 years are reviewed, concentrating on the evolution of hydrodynamical simulations, the description of weak interactions and nuclear equation of state effects, and new insights into the nucleosynthesis occurring in the early phases of the explosion, in particular the neutrino-p process. The latter is enabled by the proton-richness of the early ejecta, which was discovered because of significant progress has been made in the treatment of neutrino transport and weak interactions. This progress has led to a new generation of sophisticated Newtonian and relativistic hydrodynamics simulations in spherical symmetry. Based on these, it is now clear that the prompt bounce-shock mechanism is not the driver of supernova explosions, and that the delayed neutrino-heating mechanism can produce explosions without the aid of multi-dimensional processes only if the progenitor star has an ONeMg core inside a very dilute He-core, i.e., has a mass in the 8–10 M⊙ range. Hydrodynamic instabilities of various kinds have indeed been recognized to occur in the supernova core and to be of potential importance for the explosion. Neutrino-driven explosions, however, have been seen in two-dimensional simulations with sophisticated neutrino transport so far only when the star has a small iron core and low density in the surrounding shells as being found in stars near 10–11 M⊙. The explosion mechanism of more massive progenitors is still a puzzle. It might involve effects of three-dimensional hydrodynamics or might point to the relevance of rapid rotation and magnetohydrodynamics, or to still incompletely explored properties of neutrinos and the high-density equation of state. Hardly any other astrophysical event is as complex and physically diverse as the death of massive stars in a gravitational collapse and subsequent supernova explosion. All four known forces of nature are involved and play an important role in extreme regimes of conditions. Relativistic plasma dynamics in a strong gravitational field sets the stage, weak interactions govern the energy and lepton number loss of the system via the transport of neutrinos from regions of very high opacities to the free-streaming regime, electromagnetic and strong interactions determine the thermodynamic properties, and nuclear and weak interactions change the composition of the stellar gas. Supernova explosions thus offer a fascinating playground of physics on most different scales of length and time and also provide a testbed for new or exotic phenomena. Naturally, these spectacular astrophysical events have attracted — and have deserved — the interest and attention of researchers with very different backgrounds. To the advantage of the field, also Hans Bethe has preserved for many years his interest in the large diversity of physics problems posed by supernovae.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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Citations in the corpus

Equation-of-state dependent features in shock-oscillation modulated neutrino and gravitational-wave signals from supernovae (2008, neutral): “6 and 7 in Janka et al. 2007).”
JUNO physics and detector (2021, background): “Theoretical predictions of the SNe neutrino-emission depict three main phases, namely the shockbreakout burst phase, post-bounce accretion phase and the proto-neutron star cooling phase.”
BLACK HOLE FORMATION IN FAILING CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE (2010, background): “…precise nature of the responsible CCSN mechanism has been a topic of intense research for decades (e.g., Arnett 1966; Colgate & White 1966; Bethe & Wilson 1985; Janka et al. 2007; Burrows et al. 2006, 2007b; Murphy & Burrows 2008; Marek & Janka 2009; Nordhaus et al. 2010, and references therein).”
CHARGED-PARTICLE AND NEUTRON-CAPTURE PROCESSES IN THE HIGH-ENTROPY WIND OF CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE (2010, background): “Recent hydrodynamic simulations for core-collapse supernovae support the idea that these entropy constraints may be fulfilled in the late phase (after the initial explosion) when a reverse shock is forming (Fryer et al. 2006; Arcones et al. 2007; Burrows et al. 2007; Janka et al. 2007).”
Two-Dimensional Multiangle, Multigroup Neutrino Radiation-Hydrodynamic Simulations of Postbounce Supernova Cores (2008, background): “There is general agreement that the prompt hydrodynamic explosion mechanism does not work and that the bounce shock always stalls, falling short of blowing up the star (e.g., Bethe 1990; Janka et al. 2007), and must be re-energized to lead to a supernova.”
The mass spectrum of compact remnants from the parsec stellar evolution tracks (2015, background): “Several authors (e.g. Bethe 1990; Janka et al. 2007; Janka 2012; Burrows 2013) investigate for which structural properties of the progenitor star a SN can fail, leading to the direct collapse of the star to a BH.”
The origin of spin in binary black holes (2019, background): “For a thorough review of our current understanding of the core-collapse process see for example Janka et al. (2007).”
Colloquium: Perspectives on core-collapse supernova theory (2012, background): “For overall perspectives, I point to Bethe (1988;1990), Janka (2001,2012), Janka et al. (2007), Burrows et al. (1995,2007ab), Herant et al. (1994), Kotake, Sato, & Takahashi (2006), Kotake et al. (2012ab), Burrows (2000), and Mezzacappa (2005).”
Merging black hole binaries: the effects of progenitor's metallicity, mass-loss rate and Eddington factor (2017, background): “In particular, it is crucial to assess what are the conditions for a star to directly collapse into a BH, without an explosion (e.g. Bethe 1990; Fryer 1999; Fryer et al. 2001; Janka et al. 2007; O’Connor & Ott 2011; Janka 2012; Burrows 2013; Ertl et al. 2016).”