Carbon combustion supernovae - Numerical studies of the final evolution of degenerate carbon-oxygen cores

Abstract

The authors have performed and analyzed a set of numerical experiments of the core carbon flash, which treat axisymmetric hydrodynamic flow directly rather than use a phenomenological theory of convection. The numerical experiments show a variety of possible evolutionary paths for degenerate carbon-oxygen cores, ranging from spherical detonations to nonspherical deflagrations. The results show that the initially spherically symmetric burning front is Rayleigh-Taylor unstable. In all experiments except the one leading to a detonation, some carbon is not burned to nickel. Furthermore, all experiments lead to a total disruption of the core, leaving no condensed remnant.