Computational Models of Stellar Collapse and Core-Collapse Supernovae

TL;DR

This paper reviews computational approaches to modeling stellar collapse and supernovae, highlighting recent multi-dimensional simulations and scalable codes for understanding these energetic cosmic events.

Contribution

It introduces new computational tools and simulation results for 2D and 3D modeling of core-collapse supernovae, advancing the understanding of their explosion mechanisms.

Findings

First full 2D angle-dependent neutrino radiation-hydrodynamics simulations.

Development of Zelmani, a scalable 3D general-relativistic code.

Initial 3D simulation results of stellar collapse and black hole formation.

Abstract

Core-collapse supernovae are among Nature's most energetic events. They mark the end of massive star evolution and pollute the interstellar medium with the life-enabling ashes of thermonuclear burning. Despite their importance for the evolution of galaxies and life in the universe, the details of the core-collapse supernova explosion mechanism remain in the dark and pose a daunting computational challenge. We outline the multi-dimensional, multi-scale, and multi-physics nature of the core-collapse supernova problem and discuss computational strategies and requirements for its solution. Specifically, we highlight the axisymmetric (2D) radiation-MHD code VULCAN/2D and present results obtained from the first full-2D angle-dependent neutrino radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of the post-core-bounce supernova evolution. We then go on to discuss the new code Zelmani which is based on the open-source HPC Cactus framework and provides a scalable AMR approach for 3D fully general-relativistic modeling of stellar collapse, core-collapse supernovae and black hole formation on current and future massively-parallel HPC systems. We show Zelmani's scaling properties to more than 16,000 compute cores and discuss first 3D general-relativistic core-collapse results.