Three-dimensional models of massive stars and supernova explosions

This project investigates the final stages in the lives of massive stars. Massive stars go through a sequence of nuclear burning stages and eventually develop an onion shell structure with an iron core at the centre and several shell of lighter elements further outside. Once the iron core becomes massive enough, the core collapses either to a neutron star or to a black hole, and in most cases the envelope of the star is ejected in a gigantic supernova explosion. Such explosions are primarily responsible for producing many of the heavy elements - such as oxygen and silicon - that form the building blocks of planets like our own. Such explosions are now detected in great abundance by large-scale astronomical surveys, and they are also coveted targets for neutrino and gravitational wave detectors.
This data set comprises three-dimensional simulations of the convective burning processes during the final stages before the collapse and explosion, as well as simulations of the supernova explosions themselves. Several models for different stellar parameters and physical assumptions (e.g. with and without magnetic fields) have been calculated. The raw data for a complete model amount to several terabytes. Solutions to facilitate access to raw and curated reduced data are currently under construction.

本项目聚焦于大质量恒星演化的最终阶段。大质量恒星会经历一系列核燃烧阶段，最终形成洋葱状分层结构：核心为铁核，外层包裹多层较轻元素。当铁核质量达到临界阈值后，核心会坍缩为中子星或黑洞；多数情况下，恒星外层会在剧烈的超新星爆发中被抛射出去。这类爆发是诸多重元素（如氧、硅）的主要生成来源，而这些元素正是类地行星（如地球）的构成基础。如今，大规模天文巡天项目已探测到大量此类超新星爆发，它们同时也是中微子探测器与引力波探测器的热门观测目标。

本数据集包含恒星坍缩与爆发前最终阶段的对流核燃烧过程三维模拟数据，以及超新星爆发过程的模拟数据。研究团队已针对不同恒星参数与物理假设（例如考虑与不考虑磁场的情况）构建了多组模型。单组完整模型的原始数据量可达数太字节（terabytes）。目前，用于便捷获取原始数据与经过整理的精简数据的配套方案仍在开发中。