On the Development of Multidimensional Progenitor Models for Core-collapse Supernovae

Abstract

Abstract Multidimensional hydrodynamic simulations of shell convection in massive stars suggest the development of aspherical perturbations that may be amplified during iron core collapse. These perturbations have a crucial and qualitative impact on the delayed neutrino-driven core-collapse supernova explosion mechanism by increasing the total stress behind the stalled shock. In this paper, we investigate the properties of a 15 model evolved in one, two, and three dimensions (3D) for the final ∼424 s before gravitational instability and iron core collapse using Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) and the FLASH simulation framework. We find that just before collapse, our initially perturbed fully 3D model reaches angle-averaged convective velocity magnitudes of ≈240–260 km s−1 in the Si- and O-shell regions with a Mach number of ≈0.06. We find the bulk of the power in the O-shell resides at large scales, characterized by spherical harmonic orders (ℓ) of 2–4, while the Si-shell shows broad spectra on smaller scales of . Both convective regions show an increase in power at near collapse. We show that the 1D MESA model agrees with the convective velocity profile and speeds of the Si-shell when compared to our highest resolution 3D model. However, in the O-shell region, we find that MESA predicts speeds approximately four times slower than all of our 3D models suggest. All eight of the multidimensional stellar models considered in this work are publicly available.