Research in nuclear astrophysics: stellar collapse and supernovae. Progress report

The interaction between nuclear theory and some outstanding problems in astrophysics is examined. The chief emphasis of our program is on stellar collapse, supernovae and neutron star formation. Central to these topics are the parallel development of the equation of state of hot, dense matter and a novel type of hydrodynamical code. The LLPR compressible liquid drop model forms the basis for the former, and we propose to further refine it by including curvature corrections to the surface energy and by considering other nuclear force parameters which are in better agreement with experimentally determined quantities. The development of the equation of state has another bonus - it can be used to analyze intermediate energy heavy ion collisions, which, in turn, may illuminate the nucleon-nucleon force. The hydrodynamical code includes detailed neutrino transport and a fast, but accurate, approximation to the complete LLPR equation of state, which is necessary for numerical use. We propose to model not only the stellar collapse leading up to a supernova, but also the quasi-static deleptonization and cooling stages of the nascent neutron star. Our detailed studies of the role of neutrinos in stellar collapse and neutron star formation concentrate on their detectability and signatures - after all, neutrinos are the only direct method of observationally checking supernova theory. Complementary studies include modelling both mass accretion in the nuclei of galaxies (which is probably responsible for the quasar phenomenon) and investigations of galaxy clustering and the large scale structure of the universe