Supernova 1987A: neutrino-driven explosions in three dimensions and light curves

Understand

The well-studied type IIP SN 1987A, produced by the explosion of a blue supergiant (BSG) star, is a touchstone for massive-star evolution, simulations of neutrino-driven explosions, and modeling of light curves and spectra.

• In the framework of the neutrino-driven mechanism, we study the dependence of explosion properties on the structure of four different BSGs and compare the corresponding light curves with observations of SN 1987A.
• We perform 3D simulations with the PROMETHEUS code until about one day and map the results to the 1D code CRAB for the light curve calculations.
• All of our 3D models with explosion energies compatible with SN 1987A produce 56Ni in rough agreement with the amount deduced from fitting the radioactively powered light-curve tail.