Core-Collapse Supernovae: Reflections and Directions

Core-collapse supernovae are among the most fascinating phenomena in astrophysics and provide a formidable challenge for theoretical investigation. They mark the spectacular end of the lives of massive stars and, in an explosive eruption, release as much energy as the sun produces during its whole life. A better understanding of the astrophysical role of supernovae as birth sites of neutron stars, black holes, and heavy chemical elements, and more reliable predictions of the observable signals from stellar death events are tightly linked to the solution of the long-standing puzzle how collapsing stars achieve to explode. In this article our current knowledge of the processes that contribute to the success of the explosion mechanism are concisely reviewed. After a short overview of the sequence of stages of stellar core-collapse events, the general properties of the progenitor-dependent neutrino emission will be briefly described. Applying sophisticated neutrino transport in axisymmetric (2D) simulations with general relativity as well as in simulations with an approximate treatment of relativistic effects, we could find successful neutrino-driven explosions for a growing set of progenitor stars. First results of three-dimensional (3D) models have been obtained, and magnetohydrodynamic simulations demonstrate that strong initial magnetic fields in the pre-collapse core can foster the onset of neutrino-powered supernova explosions even in nonrotating stars. These results are discussed in the context of the present controversy about the value of 2D simulations for exploring the supernova mechanism in realistic 3D environments, and they are interpreted against the background of the current disagreement on the question whether the standing accretion shock instability (SASI) or neutrino-driven convection is the crucial agency that supports the onset of the explosion.

New Two-Dimensional Models of Supernova Explosions by the Neutrino-Heating Mechanism: Evidence for Different Instability Regimes in Collapsing Stellar Cores

The neutrino-driven explosion mechanism for core-collapse supernovae in its modern flavor relies on the additional support of hydrodynamical instabilities in achieving shock revival. Two possible candidates, convection and the so-called standing accretion shock instability (SASI), have been proposed for this role. In this paper, we discuss new successful simulations of supernova explosions that shed light on the relative importance of these two instabilities. While convection has so far been observed to grow first in self-consistent hydrodynamical models with multi-group neutrino transport, we here present the first such simulation in which the SASI grows faster while the development of convection is initially inhibited. We illustrate the features of this SASI-dominated regime using an explosion model of a 27 solar mass progenitor, which is contrasted with a convectively-dominated model of an 8.1 solar mass progenitor with subsolar metallicity, whose early post-bounce behavior is more in line with previous 11.2 and 15 solar mass explosion models. We analyze the conditions discriminating between the two different regimes, showing that a high mass-accretion rate and a short advection time-scale are conducive for strong SASI activity. We also briefly discuss some important factors for capturing the SASI-driven regime, such as general relativity, the progenitor structure, a nuclear equation of state leading to a compact proto-neutron star, and the neutrino treatment. Finally, we evaluate possible implications of our findings for 2D and 3D supernova simulations. Our results show that a better understanding of the SASI and convection in the non-linear regime is required.

A New Multi-Dimensional General Relativistic Neutrino Hydrodynamics Code for Core-Collapse Supernovae II. Relativistic Explosion Models of Core-Collapse Supernovae

We present the first two-dimensional general relativistic (GR) simulations of stellar core collapse and explosion with the CoCoNuT hydrodynamics code in combination with the VERTEX solver for energy-dependent, three-flavor neutrino transport, using the extended conformal flatness condition for approximating the spacetime metric and a ray-by-ray-plus ansatz to tackle the multi-dimensionality of the transport. For both of the investigated 11.2 and 15 solar mass progenitors we obtain successful, though seemingly marginal, neutrino-driven supernova explosions. This outcome and the time evolution of the models basically agree with results previously obtained with the PROMETHEUS hydro solver including an approximative treatment of relativistic effects by a modified Newtonian potential. However, GR models exhibit subtle differences in the neutrinospheric conditions compared to Newtonian and pseudo-Newtonian simulations. These differences lead to significantly higher luminosities and mean energies of the radiated electron neutrinos and antineutrinos and therefore to larger energy-deposition rates and heating efficiencies in the gain layer with favorable consequences for strong non-radial mass motions and ultimately for an explosion. Moreover, energy transfer to the stellar medium around the neutrinospheres through nucleon recoil in scattering reactions of heavy-lepton neutrinos also enhances the mentioned effects. Together with previous pseudo-Newtonian models the presented relativistic calculations suggest that the treatment of gravity and energy-exchanging neutrino interactions can make differences of even 50-100% in some quantities and is likely to contribute to a finally successful explosion mechanism on no minor level than hydrodynamical differences between different dimensions.

A new multi-dimensional general relativistic neutrino hydrodynamics code for core-collapse supernovae. I. Method and code tests in spherical symmetry

We present a new general relativistic (GR) code for hydrodynamic supernova simulations with neutrino transport in spherical and azimuthal symmetry (1D/2D). The code is a combination of the CoCoNuT hydro module, which is a Riemann-solver based, high-resolution shock-capturing method, and the three-flavor, energy-dependent neutrino transport scheme VERTEX. VERTEX integrates the neutrino moment equations with a variable Eddington factor closure computed from a model Boltzmann equation and uses the ray-by-ray plus approximation in 2D, assuming the neutrino distribution to be axially symmetric around the radial direction, and thus the neutrino flux to be radial. Our spacetime treatment employs the ADM 3+1 formalism with the conformal flatness condition for the spatial three-metric. This approach is exact in 1D and has been shown to yield very accurate results also for rotational stellar collapse. We introduce new formulations of the energy equation to improve total energy conservation in relativistic and Newtonian hydro simulations with Eulerian finite-volume codes. Moreover, a modified version of the VERTEX scheme is developed that simultaneously conserves energy and lepton number with better accuracy and higher numerical stability. To verify our code, we conduct a series of tests, including a detailed comparison with published 1D results for stellar core collapse. Long-time simulations of proto-neutron star cooling over several seconds both demonstrate the robustness of the new CoCoNuT-VERTEX code and show the approximate treatment of GR effects by means of an effective gravitational potential as in PROMETHEUS-VERTEX to be remarkably accurate in 1D. (abridged)

Neutrino Signal of Electron-Capture Supernovae from Core Collapse to Cooling

An 8.8 solar mass electron-capture supernova (SN) was simulated in spherical symmetry consistently from collapse through explosion to nearly complete deleptonization of the forming neutron star. The evolution time of about 9 s is short because of nucleon-nucleon correlations in the neutrino opacities. After a brief phase of accretion-enhanced luminosities (~200 ms), luminosity equipartition among all species becomes almost perfect and the spectra of electron antineutrinos and muon/tau antineutrinos very similar. We discuss consequences for the neutrino-driven wind as a nucleosynthesis site and for flavor oscillations of SN neutrinos.