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The core of a massive star (M > 8 Msun) eventually collapses. This implosion usually triggers a supernova (SN) explosion that ejects most of the stellar envelope and leaves behind a neutron star (NS) with a mass of up to about 2 Msun.…
The rapidly growing base of observational data for supernova explosions of massive stars demands theoretical explanations. Central of these is a self-consistent model for the physical mechanism that provides the energy to start and drive…
Neutrinos emitted during the collapse, bounce and subsequent explosion provide information about supernova dynamics. The neutrino spectra are determined by weak interactions with nuclei and nucleons in the inner regions of the star, and…
Massive stars (M> 10Msun) end their lives with spectacular explosions due to gravitational collapse. The collapse turns the stars into compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes with the ejection of cosmic rays and heavy…
Although the details of the core-collapse supernova mechanism are not fully understood, it is generally accepted that the energy released in the collapse produces a shock that disrupts the star and produces the explosion. Some of the…
The mechanism of core-collapse supernova explosions must draw on the energy provided by gravitational collapse and transfer the necessary fraction to the kinetic and internal energy of the ejecta. Despite many decades of concerted…
The death of massive stars is shrouded in many mysteries. One of them is the mechanism that overturns the collapse of the degenerate iron core into an explosion, a process that determines the supernova explosion energy, properties of the…
Light sterile neutrinos, $\nu_s$, are often introduced to explain an anomalous deficit in the electron antineutrino flux from nuclear reactors. If they exist, sterile neutrinos would also be produced in collapsing massive stars through the…
The speed of an intensity pattern of polarization currents on a circle, induced within a star by its rotating, magnetized core, will exceed the speed of light for a sufficiently large star, and/or rapid rotation, and will, in turn, generate…
Core-collapse supernovae are among the most energetic cosmic cataclysms. They are prodigious emitters of neutrinos and quite likely strong galactic sources of gravitational waves. Observation of both neutrinos and gravitational waves from…
Supernova theory, numerical and analytic, has made remarkable progress in the past decade. This progress was made possible by more sophisticated simulation tools, especially for neutrino transport, improved microphysics, and deeper insights…
How do massive stars explode? Progress toward the answer is driven by increases in compute power. Petascale supercomputers are enabling detailed three-dimensional simulations of core-collapse supernovae. These are elucidating the role of…
We propose a new constraint on light (sub-GeV) particles beyond the Standard Model that can be produced inside the proto-neutron star core resulting from the core-collapse supernova explosion. It is derived by demanding that the energy…
Details of the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) are not yet fully understood. There is an increasing number of numerical examples by ab-initio core-collapse simulations leading to an explosion. Most, if not all, of…
Core-collapse supernovae, the culmination of massive stellar evolution, are spectacular astronomical events and the principle actors in the story of our elemental origins. Our understanding of these events, while still incomplete, centers…
Neutrinos are believed to have a key role in the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae as they carry most of the energy released by the gravitational collapse of a massive star. If their flavor is converted fast inside the…
The question why and how core-collapse supernovae (SNe) explode is one of the central and most long-standing riddles of stellar astrophysics. A solution is crucial for deciphering the SN phenomenon, for predicting observable signals such as…
In this paper, we present the results of 3-dimensional collapse simulations of rotating stars for a range of stellar progenitors. We find that for the fastest spinning stars, rotation does indeed modify the convection above the…
Core-collapse supernovae are among the most energetic explosions in the universe marking the catastrophic end of massive stars. In spite of rigorous studies for several decades, we still don't understand the explosion mechanism completely.…
A core-collapse supernova will produce an enormous burst of neutrinos of all flavors in the few-tens-of-MeV range. Measurement of the flavor, time and energy structure of a nearby core-collapse neutrino burst will yield answers to many…