Multigroup Models of the Convective Epoch in Core Collapse Supernovae

Abstract

Understanding the explosion mechanism of core collapse supernovae is a problem that has plagued nuclear astrophysicists since the first computational models of this phenomenon were carried out in the 1960s. Our current theories of this violent phenomenon center around multi-dimensional effects involving radiation-hydrodynamic flows of hot, dense matter and neutrinos. Modeling these multi-dimensional radiative flows presents a computational challenge that will continue to stress high-performance computing beyond the teraflop to the petaflop level. In this paper we describe a few of the scientific discoveries that we have made via terascale computational simulations of supernovae under the auspices of the SciDAC-funded Terascale Supernova Initiative.