Related papers: Physics of Superluminous Supernovae
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…
This chapter concentrates on the deaths of very massive stars, the events leading up to their deaths, and how mass loss affects the resulting death. The previous three chapters emphasized the theory of wind mass loss, eruptions, and core…
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…
Massive stars end their short lives in spectacular explosions, supernovae, that synthesize new elements and drive galaxy evolution. Throughout history supernovae were discovered chiefly through their delayed optical light, preventing…
Superluminous supernovae are a new class of supernovae that were recognized about a decade ago. Both observational and theoretical progress has been significant in the last decade. In this review, we first briefly summarize the…
Core-collapse Supernovae (CCSNe) mark the deaths of stars more massive than about eight times the mass of the sun and are intrinsically the most common kind of catastrophic cosmic explosions. They can teach us about many important physical…
Almost since the beginning, massive stars and their resultant supernovae have played a crucial role in the Universe. These objects produce tremendous amounts of energy and new, heavy elements that enrich galaxies, encourage new stars to…
One of the central problems in supernova theory is the question how massive stars explode. Understanding the physical processes that drive the explosion is crucial for linking the stellar progenitors to the final remnants and for predicting…
Supernovae are the most energetic stellar events and influence the interstellar medium by their gasdynamics and energetics. By this, both also affect the star formation positively and negatively. In this paper, we review the complexity of…
Core-collapse supernovae are among the most fascinating phenomena in astrophysics and provide a formidable challenge for theoretical investigation. They mark the spectacular end of the lives of massive stars and, in an explosive eruption,…
The extreme luminosity and their fairly unique temporal behaviour have made supernovae a superb tool to measure distances in the universe. As complex astrophysical events they provide interesting insights into explosion physics, explosive…
The era of the universe's first (Population III) stars is essentially unconstrained by observation. Ultra-luminous and massive stars from this time altered the chemistry of the cosmos, provided the radiative scaffolding to support the…
Fresh insights and powerful numerical tools are revitalizing the theoretical exploration of the supernova mechanism. The realization that the protoneutron star is Rayleigh-Taylor unstable at various times and radii and, hence, that a…
Core-collapse supernovae are the terminal explosions of massive stars. After successive phases of nuclear fusion proceeding up to silicon burning, these stars form an iron core that is supported by electron degeneracy pressure. The core…
Supernovae are the most energetic stellar events and influence the interstellar medium by their gasdynamics and energetics. By this, both also affect the star formation positively and negatively. In this paper, we review the development of…
Massive stars live fast and die young. They shine furiously for a few million years, during which time they synthesize most of the heavy elements in the universe in their cores. They end by blowing themselves up in a powerful explosion…
Massive stars and their supernovae are prominent sources of radioactive isotopes, the observations of which thus can help to improve our astrophysical models of those. Our understanding of stellar evolution and the final explosive endpoints…
The explosive death of a star as a supernova is one of the most dramatic events in the Universe. Supernovae have an outsized impact on many areas of astrophysics: they are major contributors to the chemical enrichment of the cosmos and…
Modern cosmological simulations predict that the first generation of stars formed with a mass scale around 100 solar masses about 300-400 million years after the Big Bang. When the first stars reached the end of their lives, many of them…
Most supernova explosions accompany the death of a massive star. These explosions give birth to neutron stars and black holes and eject solar masses of heavy elements. However, determining the mechanism of explosion has been a half-century…