Hans-Thomas Janka: Das Supernova-Rätsel

Massive stars collapse into neutron stars or black holes at the end of their lives. This can result in a colossal supernova explosion. What causes these almost unimaginable events, which release more energy than the Sun will produce over billions of years and shine brighter for days and weeks than all the stars in a galaxy combined? This question was a long-standing, unsolved puzzle for theoretical astrophysics. The lecture by Associate Professor Dr. Hans-Thomas Janka, part of the "Science for Everyone" series, tells the fascinating story of how generations of physicists and astrophysicists, through more than 50 years of intensive research, were able to decipher the complex processes in dying stars. Continuously improved computer models played a central role in this endeavor. State-of-the-art, three-dimensional calculations on the most powerful supercomputers now confirm a long-held suspicion: Neutrinos, produced in enormous quantities at the center of the collapsing star, trigger the explosion and provide the immense energy with which the dying star's matter is hurled into surrounding space. Only once have two dozen such neutrinos from a supernova been detected. But when a star dies in our Milky Way, experiments deep underground and in the Antarctic ice will measure the neutrino signal in great detail, thus providing direct insights into the processes involved in the formation of a neutron star or black hole. In collaboration with the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence and the physics departments of LMU and TU Munich