Nucleosynthesis and Clump Formation in a Core Collapse Supernova

Abstract

High-resolution two-dimensional simulations were performed for the first five minutes of the evolution of a core collapse supernova explosion in a 15 solar mass blue supergiant progenitor. The computations start shortly after bounce and include neutrino-matter interactions by using a light-bulb approximation for the neutrinos, and a treatment of the nucleosynthesis due to explosive silicon and oxygen burning. We find that newly formed iron-group elements are distributed throughout the inner half of the helium core by Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities at the Ni+Si/O and C+O/He interfaces, seeded by convective overturn during the early stages of the explosion. Fast moving nickel mushrooms with velocities up to about 4000 km/s are observed. This offers a natural explanation for the mixing required in light curve and spectral synthesis studies of Type Ib explosions. A continuation of the calculations to later times, however, indicates that the iron velocities observed in SN 1987 A cannot be reproduced because of a strong deceleration of the clumps in the dense shell left behind by the shock at the He/H interface.