Exploring Fundamentally Three-dimensional Phenomena in High-fidelity Simulations of Core-collapse Supernovae

Abstract

The details of the physical mechanism that drives core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) remain uncertain. While there is an emerging consensus on the qualitative outcome of detailed CCSN mechanism simulations in 2D, only recently have high-fidelity 3D simulations become possible. Here we present the results of an extensive set of 3D CCSN simulations using high-fidelity multidimensional neutrino transport, high-resolution hydrodynamics, and approximate general relativistic gravity. We employ a state-of-the-art 20 solar mass progenitor generated using the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA; Farmer et al. (2016) Paxton et al. (2011, 2013, 2015, 2018) and the SFHo equation of state of Steiner et al. (2013). While none of our 3D CCSN simulations explode within ~500ms after core bounce, we find that the presence of large scale aspherical motion in the Si and O shells surrounding the collapsing iron core aid shock expansion and bring the models closer to the threshold of explosion. We also find some dependence on resolution and geometry (octant vs. full 4$\pi$). As has been noted in other recent works, we find that the post-shock turbulence plays an important role in determining the overall dynamical evolution of our simulations. We find a strong standing accretion shock instability (SASI) that develops at late times during the shock recession epoch. The SASI aids in transient shock expansion phases, but is not enough to result in shock revival. We also report that for a subset of our simulations, we find conclusive evidence for the LESA first reported in Tamborra et al. (2014), but until now, not confirmed by other simulation codes. Both the progenitor asphericities and the SASI-induced transient shock expansion phases generate transient gravitational waves and neutrino signal modulations via perturbations of the protoneutron star by turbulent motions. (abridged)