'56Ni problem' in Canonical Supernova Explosion featuring Ryo Sawada (University of Tokyo)

IReNA Online Seminar to begin 11am EST.

Details of the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) are not yet fully understood. There is now an increasing number of successful examples of reproducing explosions in the first-principles simulations, showing a slow increase of explosion energy. However, it was recently pointed out that the growth rates of the explosion energy of these simulations are insufficient to produce enough 56Ni mass to account for observations.
Radioisotope 56Ni is an important product, which drives supernova brightness. However, the amount of 56Ni often goes unnoticed by the explosion mechanism community because it is difficult to estimate at first glance from numerical data. We refer to this issue as the "nickel mass problem" (56Ni problem, hereafter; Sawada et al. 2019, Suwa et al. 2019, Sawada & Suwa 2021). In this talk, I will start with the basics of elemental synthesis of the radioisotope 56Ni in supernova explosions and the mechanism of supernova explosions, and will finally discuss "56Ni problem", focusing on my own study.