Radiation-hydrodynamical modelling of Core-Collapse Supernovae: light curves and the evolution of photospheric velocity and temperature

TL;DR

This paper introduces a relativistic radiation-hydrodynamics code for simulating core-collapse supernovae, accurately modeling observable features like light curves and photospheric velocities, and compares results with observations and other models.

Contribution

The paper presents a new, comprehensive relativistic code for simulating supernova observables, including gravitational effects and a fully implicit solution approach.

Findings

Code successfully reproduces observed light curves of SN 1987A

Physical parameters significantly influence ejecta evolution

Comparison with other models validates the code's accuracy

Abstract

We have developed a relativistic, radiation-hydrodynamics Lagrangian code, specifically tailored to simulate the evolution of the main observables (light curve, evolution of photospheric velocity and temperature) in core-collapse supernova (CC-SN) events. The distinctive features of the code are an accurate treatment of radiative transfer coupled to relativistic hydrodynamics, a self-consistent treatment of the evolution of the innermost ejecta taking into account the gravitational effects of the central compact remnant, and a fully implicit Lagrangian approach to the solution of the coupled non-linear finite difference system of equations. Our aim is to use it as numerical tool to perform calculations of grid of models to be compared with observation of CC-SNe. In this paper we present some testcase simulations and a comparison with observations of SN 1987A, as well as with the results obtained with other numerical codes. We also briefly discuss the influence of the main physical parameters (ejected mass, progenitor radius, explosion energy, amount of \chem{56}{Ni}) on the evolution of the ejecta, and the implications of our results in connection with the possibility to "standardize" hydrogen-rich CC-SNe for using them as candles to measure cosmological distances.