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About 400 years have passed since the great discoveries by Galilei, Kepler and Newton, but astronomy still remains an important source of discoveries in physics. They start with puzzles, with phenomena difficult to explain, and which in…
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are one of the major tools to determine the cosmological parameters. Utilizing them as distance indicators, it is possible to geometrically survey the universe. To this end, the intrinsic scatter in the…
The discovery of many objects with unprecedented, amazing observational characteristics caused the last decade to be the most prolific period for the supernova research. Many of these new supernovae are transitional objects between existing…
In this paper, we review the present state of theoretical models of thermonuclear supernovae, and compare their predicitions with the constraints derived from observations of Type Ia supernovae. The diversity of explosion mechanisms usually…
The discovery of dark energy by the first generation of high-redshift supernova surveys has generated enormous interest beyond cosmology and has dramatic implications for fundamental physics. Distance measurements using supernova explosions…
Core-collapse theory brings together many facets of high-energy and nuclear astrophysics and the numerical arts to present theorists with one of the most important, yet frustrating, astronomical questions: "What is the mechanism of…
Although Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are a major tool in cosmology and play a key role in the chemical evolution of galaxies, the nature of their progenitor systems (apart from the fact that they must contain at least one white dwarf, that…
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are a prime tool in observational cosmology. A relation between their peak luminosities and the shapes of their light curves allows to infer their intrinsic luminosities and to use them as distance indicators.…
A fundamental presupposition of modern cosmology is the Copernican Principle; that we are not in a central, or otherwise special region of the Universe. Studies of Type Ia supernovae, together with the Copernican Principle, have led to the…
The suggestion in 1986 of a possible gravity-like ``fifth" fundamental force renewed interest in the question of whether new macroscopic forces are present in nature. Such forces are predicted in many theories which unify gravity with the…
The accelerating expansion of the universe suggests that an unknown component with strongly negative pressure, called dark energy, currently dominates the dynamics of the universe. Such a component makes up ~70% of the energy density of the…
The major role type Ia supernovae play in many fields of astrophysics and in particular in cosmological distance determinations calls for self-consistent models of these events. Since their mechanism is believed to crucially depend on…
A brief pedagogical review for students on basic physics of Superluminous Supernovae. Almost no references to literature are given, but important formulas are derived in some detail.
Dark energy and the accelerated expansion of the universe have been the direct predictions of the distant supernovae Ia observations which are also supported, indirectly, by the observations of the CMB anisotropies, gravitational lensing…
Novae and supernovae play a key role in many fields of Astrophysics and Cosmology. Despite their importance, an accurate description of which objects explode and why and how they explode is still lacking. One of the main characteristics of…
Type Ia supernovae have become an indispensable tool for studying the expansion history of the universe, yet our understanding of the explosion mechanism is still incomplete. We describe the variety of discussed scenarios, sketch the most…
There has been a new infusion of ideas in the study of the mechanism and early character of core--collapse supernovae. However, despite recent conceptual and computational progress, fundamental questions remain. Some are summarize herein.
Classical nova explosions and type I X-ray bursts are the most frequent types of thermonuclear stellar explosions in the Galaxy. Both phenomena arise from thermonuclear ignition in the envelopes of accreting compact objects in close binary…
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are fundamental to cosmology and galactic chemical evolution, yet the nature of their progenitor systems remains unresolved. Multiple evolutionary pathways, including single-degenerate, double-degenerate, and…
Type Ia Supernovae hold great promise to measure the cosmic deceleration. The diversity observed among these explosions, however, complicates their ability to measure cosmological parameters considerably. The comparison of near and distant…