STOCHASTICITY AND EFFICIENCY IN SIMPLIFIED MODELS OF CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA EXPLOSIONS

Journal Article · Sun Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/813/1/L6· OSTI ID:22518733

Cardall, Christian Y. ^[1]

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1. Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6354 (United States)

We present an initial report on 160 simulations of a highly simplified model of the post-bounce core-collapse supernova environment in three spatial dimensions (3D). We set different values of a parameter characterizing the impact of nuclear dissociation at the stalled shock in order to regulate the post-shock fluid velocity, thereby determining the relative importance of convection and the stationary accretion shock instability (SASI). While our convection-dominated runs comport with the paradigmatic notion of a “critical neutrino luminosity” for explosion at a given mass accretion rate (albeit with a nontrivial spread in explosion times just above threshold), the outcomes of our SASI-dominated runs are much more stochastic: a sharp threshold critical luminosity is “smeared out” into a rising probability of explosion over a ∼20% range of luminosity. We also find that the SASI-dominated models are able to explode with 3–4 times less efficient neutrino heating, indicating that progenitor properties, and fluid and neutrino microphysics, conducive to the SASI would make the neutrino-driven explosion mechanism more robust.

• OSTI ID: 22518733
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 813; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONVECTION
COSMIC NEUTRINOS
GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE
HEATING
HYDRODYNAMICS
LUMINOSITY
PROBABILITY
STAR EVOLUTION
STOCHASTIC PROCESSES
SUPERNOVAE
VELOCITY