The Impact of Hydrodynamic Mixing on Supernova Progenitors

Abstract

Recent multidimensional hydrodynamic simulations have demonstrated the importance of hydrodynamic motions in the convective boundary and radiative regions of stars to transport of energy, momentum, and composition. The impact of these processes increases with stellar mass. Stellar models that approximate this physics have been tested on several classes of observational problems. In this Letter, we examine the implications of the improved treatment for supernova progenitors. The improved models predict substantially different interior structures. We present presupernova conditions and simple explosion calculations from stellar models with and without the improved mixing treatment at 23 M☉. The results differ substantially.