HLRB Project h0971
Mehrdimensionale Simulationen von Explosionen Weißer Zwergsterne
Lehrstuhl für Astronomie, Uni Würzburg
Proposing Institution
Lehrstuhl für Astronomie, Uni Würzburg
Project Manager
Prof. Dr. Jens Niemeyer
Am Hubland
97074 Würzburg
Abstract
Supernovae of type Ia currently serve as superior indicators for cosmological distance measurements. They are theoretically explained as thermonuclear explosions of white dwarf stars. The propagation of burning fronts subject to turbulence is crucial for understanding the explosion mechanism. On account of the highly complex physics, however, various details and, particularly, the relation between initial conditions and the final outcome of an explosion are only rudimentarily understood. Our research goal is to investigate the dynamics of thermonuclear supernova explosions in multidimensional computer simulations. We intend to place emphasis on possible transitions from the phase of subsonic deflagration to a supersonic detonation as well as the influence of rotation. Moreover, the treatment of turbulence, which affects the evolution of the burning process over a wide range of length scales, is yet another issue which calls for thorough investigation. We are going to use a fully parallelised computer code which has been developed by a group of researches at the MPI for Astrophysics in Garching. This code was successfully applied to simulations of type Ia supernova explosions in a former HLRB project (project manager W. Hillebrandt). Consequently, we have an excellent tool at our disposal to tackle the questions raised above, and we are confident that the understanding of type Ia supernovae thereby will significantly advance.
