The Physics of Massive Star Death

Abstract

Neutrino heating may drive explosions of massive stars (core-collapse supernovae). Although it is known that the stalled accretion shock turns into explosion when the neutrino luminosity reaches critical value (L_crit), the reason for existence of L_crit as well as its dependence on parameters of the problem are unknown. We find that there is a direct correspondence between the isothermal accretion flow bounded by a shock and L_crit. We provide an accurate condition for explosion. We find that the luminosity from the cooling of the flow is sub-dominant to the core luminosity for driving the explosion. We suggest that the reduction in L_crit as a function of dimension is due to less efficient cooling in higher dimensions.