Study of core-collapse supernovae and their progenitors

Abstract

Supernovae are the cosmic fireworks that mark the death of stars, wherein heavy elements are forged and dispersed, leading to the galactic enrichment of the Universe. In core-collapse supernovae, the collapse of the inert iron core in massive stars paves the way for the catastrophic explosion. This gives rise to a range of observational signatures due to the diverse nature of the pre-explosion star and its environment. The decoding of the progenitor’s properties and its immediate environment therefore calls for a comprehensive study of these events. The underlying quest of most current studies in this field is to map each of these explosions to a progenitor system in order to construct a complete picture of the theory of stellar evolution.