Thermal effects in supernova matter

of the Dissertation Thermal Effects in Supernova Matter by Constantinos Constantinou Doctor of Philosophy in Physics and Astronomy Stony Brook University 2013 A crucial ingredient in simulations of core collapse supernova (SN) explosions is the equation of state (EOS) of nucleonic matter for densities extending from 10−7 fm−3 to 1 fm−3, temperatures up to 50 MeV, and proton-to-baryon fraction in the range 0 to 1/2. SN explosions release 99% of the progenitor star’s gravitational potential energy in the form of neutrinos and, additionally, they are responsible for populating the universe with elements heavier than Fe. Therefore, the importance of understanding this phenomenon cannot be overstated as it could shed light onto the underlying nuclear and neutrino physics. A realistic EOS of SN matter must incorporate the nucleon-nucleon interaction in a many-body environment. We treat this problem with a non-relativistic potential model as well as relativistic mean-field theoretical one. In the former approach, we employ the Skyrme-like Hamiltonian density constructed by Akmal, Pandharipande, and Ravenhall which takes into account the long scatter-