Related papers: Physics of Superluminous Supernovae
In this lecture, we give a first introduction to neutron stars, based on fundamental physical principles. After outlining their amazing macroscopic properties, as obtained from observations, we infer the extreme conditions of matter in…
Core-collapse supernovae are among Nature's grandest explosions. They are powered by the energy released in gravitational collapse and include a rich set of physical phenomena involving all fundamental forces and many branches of physics…
Rapidly rotating, strongly magnetized neutron stars (magnetars) can release their enormous rotational energy via magnetic spin-down, providing a power source for bright transients such as superluminous supernovae. On the other hand,…
The interaction of post-explosion supernova ejecta with the surrounding circumstellar medium creates emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the circumstellar medium is created by the mass lost from the progenitor star, it…
A rare class of `super-luminous' supernovae that are about ten or more times more luminous at their peaks than other types of luminous supernovae has recently been found at low to intermediate redshifts. A small subset of these events have…
Massive stars blow powerful winds and eventually explode as supernovae. By doing so, they inject energy and momentum in the circumstellar medium, which is pushed away from the star and piles up to form a dense and expanding shell of gas.…
Decades-long repeat observations of supernova SN1987A offer us unique, real-time insights into the violent death of a massive star and its long-term environmental effects, until its eventual switch-off.
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…
I review multiwavelength observations of material seen around different types of evolved massive stars (i.e. red supergiants, yellow hypergiants, luminous blue variables, B[e] supergiants, and Wolf-Rayet stars), concentrating on diagnostics…
Observing the stars in our night sky tells us that giant, supergiant and hypergiant stars hold an unique importance in the understanding of stellar populations. Theoretical stellar models predict a rich tapestry of evolved stars. These…
It is difficult to establish the properties of massive stars that explode as supernovae. The electromagnetic emission during the first minutes to hours after the emergence of the shock from the stellar surface conveys important information…
This review concentrates on nucleosynthesis processes in general and their applications to massive stars and supernovae. A brief initial introduction is given to the physics in astrophysical plasmas which governs composition changes. We…
Though it is agreed that the post-bounce, pre-explosion cores of massive stars are unstable to transonic, Rayleigh-Taylor-like instabilities, the role convective motions may play in igniting the supernova explosion itself is not yet clear.…
Supernovae (SNe) are stellar explosions driven by gravitational or thermonuclear energy, observed as electromagnetic radiation emitted over weeks or more. In all known SNe, this radiation comes from internal energy deposited in the…
Giant eruptions or supernova-impostor events are far more mysterious than true supernovae. An extreme example can release as much radiative energy as a SN, ejecting several M_sun of material. These events involve continuous radiation-driven…
We investigate the supernova explosions that end the lives of massive Population III stars in low-mass minihalos (M~10^6 M_sun) at redshifts z~20. Employing the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method, we carry out numerical simulations in a…
Although only a small fraction of stars end their lives as supernovae, all supernovae leave behind a supernova remnant (SNR), an expanding shock wave that interacts with the surrounding medium, heating the gas and seeding the cosmos with…
The main observational properties and resulting classification of supernovae (SNe) are briefly reviewed. Then we discuss the progress in modeling of two basic types of SNe - the thermonuclear and core-collapse ones, with special emphasis…
Circumstellar interaction has been observed around all types of massive star supernovae, especially at radio and X-ray wavelengths. The interaction shells in Type Ib/c supernovae appear to be moving rapidly, although SN 1998bw remains the…
Gamma- and X-rays resulting from radioactive decays provide a potentially powerful tool to investigate the explosion physics of supernovae, since the distribution and the amount of radioactive isotopes are strongly dependent on properties…