The physics of core collapse supernovae

I have developed an equation of state (EOS) for hot, dense matter that is intended specifically for use in radiation hydrodynamic simulations of supernovae, proto-neutron star cooling, and neutron stars. This EOS makes use of an adjustable nucleon-nucleon interaction that allows for the input of various nuclear force parameters that are not well determined by laboratory measurements. Properties of the EOS as a function of these input parameters were studied and comparisons were made to another EOS that is currently used in stellar collapse simulations. Using this EOS I have conducted simulations of core collapse supernovae with several ideas in mind. First, I have attempted to delineate role of the incompressibility of dense matter in supernovae. I have conducted a parameter study in which the compression modulous of bulk nuclear matter was varied and have found some new and surprising results. When the EOS is constrained by the observed mass of 1.44{dollar}Msbodot{dollar} for one of the components of the binary pulsar system PSR1913+16, the "stiffness" of the EOS no longer plays a role in the shock dynamics of the supernova. Secondly, I varied the symmetry energy coefficients in the EOS to determine the role of these coefficients in supernovae. I have found that the symmetry energy behavior of the EOS has potentially observable effects and may play an important role in determining the efficacy of the late-time heating mechanism for the explosion and the stability of the post-bounce core against convection. Finally, I have developed an implicit, general relativistic, radiation hydrodynamics algorithm for the numerical simulation of supernovae. By allowing simulation timesteps to exceed the Courant timescale, this algorithm makes practical high resolution simulations of supernovae to late times. I discuss this algorithm and the associated computer code along with code verification tests and an example of a late-time calculation.