A Detailed Breakdown of Core Collapse Supernovae

The amount of energy produced from the collapsing core of a massive star is pretty inconceivable. The mechanism that facilitates the creation and distribution of this energy is just as wild. If you're like me you may have heard that Supernovae are the result of stellar masses "bouncing" off the incredibly dense proto-neutron star core. Like many things in this world, reality is far more complicated.

The research presented here was conducted by the Princeton Supernovae Group. David Vartanyan acknowledges NSF and DoE funding and the computational facilities at NERSC, TACC, and ALCF, with special thanks to Joseph Insley for visualization. The research was published in https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3223 and https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty2585.

Special thanks to:
Dr. David Vartanyan for supplying high def simulation footage and answering questions

Prof. Robin Jeffries for answering some questions and clearing up some misconceptions I had about the the Direct Urca Process and the collapse mechanism

Sources/Further Reading:

Core-collapse supernova explosion theory: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03...

Supernova Explosions: David Branch • J. Craig Wheeler

Understanding Stellar Evolution: Henny J.G.L.M. Lamers, Emily M. Levesque

Exploding Superstars|Understanding Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursts: Alain Mazure

Direct URCA process in neutron stars with strong magnetic fields: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...

The mechanism(s) of core-collapse supernovae: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0271

Neutrino transport in core collapse supernovae: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-0427(99...

ASASSN-15lh: A highly super-luminous supernova: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac9613

Core Collapse Supernovae: http://flash.uchicago.edu/~calder/cor....

Direct Urca process in a neutron star mantle: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/ful...

The Life And Death Of Stars: https://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu...