Adam Griffiths: Building the progenitors for magneto-rotational core collapse supernovae

Thursday 27 Nov 2025, 13:15 → 14:00 Europe/Stockholm

A5:1003 (AlbaNova Main Building)

Massive stars are the progenitors of the energetic explosions known as core-collapse supernovae. When these stars rotate and host magnetic fields—as many of them do—they can produce even more powerful magneto-rotational explosions. Such events are often highly asymmetric and can drive some of the most energetic phenomena in the Universe.

In recent decades, enormous progress has been made in modelling stellar collapse, the explosion mechanism, and the subsequent evolution into the supernova remnant phase. More recently, however, attention has shifted back to the modelling techniques used to produce the progenitors of core-collapse supernovae themselves. Stellar evolution codes rely on one-dimensional spherical symmetry, an unavoidable assumption given the long evolutionary timescales they must cover.

As a result, two major research directions have emerged within the progenitor community. The first involves revisiting the physical ingredients and effective prescriptions employed in stellar evolution models, and assessing how these choices influence the internal structure of the star and ultimately the explosion dynamics. The second focuses on building multi-dimensional progenitor models prior to collapse, so that explosion simulations can incorporate the true 3D structure of the star and the deviations from spherical symmetry introduced by convection, rotation, and magnetic fields.