Physics of Core-Collapse Supernovae in Three Dimensions: a Sneak Preview

Understand

Nonspherical mass motions are a generic feature of core-collapse supernovae, and hydrodynamic instabilities play a crucial role for the explosion mechanism.

• First successful neutrino-driven explosions could be obtained with self-consistent, first-principle simulations in three spatial dimensions (3D).
• But 3D models tend to be less prone to explosion than corresponding axisymmetric (2D) ones.
• This has been explained by 3D turbulence leading to energy cascading from large to small spatial scales, inversely to the 2D case, thus disfavoring the growth of buoyant plumes on the largest scales.