Mechanisms of supernova explosion

Abstract

Abstract The modern status of supernova mechanisms is reviewed with special emphasis on physical processes involved. An extensive study of supernovae (both observational and theoretical) during the last decade, prompted by the outburst of close Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud, led to general consensus that Type Ia supernovae are the result of thermonuclear explosion of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs whereas other types supernovae (especially Type II) are triggered by the gravitational collapse of stellar iron cores. However, there is still much left to do to understand the details of the two supernova mechanisms. The main difficulties are due to the lack of a comprehensive theory of thermonuclear flame in degenerate stellar matter for Type Ia supernovae and a very complicated (essentially three-dimensional) picture of the energy transfer from a dense collapsed remnant (neutron star) to the expelled stellar envelope in the case of other type supernovae—the interaction of neutrino flux with large-scale convective eddies and possible role of stellar rotation and magnetic fields make it very difficult to construct a consistent unambiguous quantitative model of Type II supernovae.