Nucleosynthesis and Clump Formation in a Core Collapse Supernova

  • 10 November 1999
Abstract
High-resolution two-dimensional simulations were performed for the first five minutes of the evolution of a core collapse supernova explosion in a 15 solar mass blue supergiant progenitor. The computations start shortly after core bounce and include neutrino-matter interactions by using a light-bulb approximation for the neutrinos, and a treatment of the nucleosynthesis due to explosive silicon and oxygen burning. We find that newly formed iron-group elements are distributed throughout a significant fraction of the stellar helium core by the concerted action of convective and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. Fast moving nickel mushrooms with velocities up to 4000 km/s are observed. This offers a natural explanation for the amount of mixing required in light curve and spectral synthesis studies of Type Ib explosions. A continuation of the calculations to later times, however, indicates, that the iron velocities observed in SN 1987 A cannot be reproduced because of a strong deceleration of the clumps during their interaction with the dense shell left behind by the shock at the He/H interface.

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