Computational models of stellar collapse and core-collapse supernovae

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series Vol. 180; no. 1; p. 012022
• Main Authors: Ott, Christian D, Schnetter, Erik, Burrows, Adam, Livne, Eli, O'Connor, Evan, Löffler, Frank
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.07.2009
• Subjects: Ashes; Astronomical models; Black holes; Galactic evolution; Galaxies; Gamma rays; Interstellar matter; Magnetohydrodynamics; Massive stars; Neutrinos; Physics; Radiation; Relativistic effects; Stellar evolution; Supernovae; Three dimensional models
• ISSN: 1742-6596; 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/180/1/012022

Core-collapse supernovae are among Nature's most energetic events. They mark the end of massive star evolution and pollute the interstellar medium with the life-enabling ashes of thermonuclear burning. Despite their importance for the evolution of galaxies and life in the universe, the details of the core-collapse supernova explosion mechanism remain in the dark and pose a daunting computational challenge. We outline the multi-dimensional, multi-scale, and multi-physics nature of the core-collapse supernova problem and discuss computational strategies and requirements for its solution. Specifically, we highlight the axisymmetric (2D) radiation-MHD code VULCAN/2D and present results obtained from the first full-2D angle-dependent neutrino radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of the post-core-bounce supernova evolution. We then go on to discuss the new code Zelmani which is based on the open-source HPC Cactus framework and provides a scalable AMR approach for 3D fully general-relativistic modeling of stellar collapse, core-collapse supernovae and black hole formation on current and future massively-parallel HPC systems. We show Zelmani's scaling properties to more than 16,000 compute cores and discuss first 3D general-relativistic core-collapse results.