The search for the explosion mechanism of core collapse supernovae and the computation of the nucleosynthesis in these spectacular stellar explosions is one of the most important and most challenging problems in computational nuclear astrophysics. Core collapse supernovae are the most energetic explosions in the Universe, releasing 10 53 erg of energy in the form of neutrinos of all flavors at a staggering rate of 10 57 neutrinos per second and 10 45 Watts, disrupting, almost entirely, stars more massive than ten Solar masses and producing and dissemniating many of the elements in the Periodic Table, without which life would not exist. They are a nexus for nuclear physics, particle physics, fluid dynamics, radiation transport, and general relativity, and serve as cosmic laboratories for matter at extremes of density, temperature, and neutronization that cannot be produced in terrestrial laboratories and physics beyond the Standard Model.

These are exciting times for supernova modelers. The advent of next-generation neutrino detectors such as Super-Kamiokande and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory promise thousands of neutrino events in the next Galactic supernova. These will provide detailed neutrino ``light curves'' from which supernova models can be diagnosed and improved. Gravitational wave observatories such as LIGO, now coming online, will bring additional and complementary information from deep within the explosion, telling us about the different modes of supernova convection thought to play a role in the explosion mechanism. The myriad data from current ground- and space-based observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory are mounting, bringing us information in all wavebands about the composition and morphology of supernova ejecta, which in turn provides a fingerprint of the explosion mechanism and supernova nucleosynthesis. The construction of a next-generation facility (RIA) to measure lifetimes of radioactive neutron-rich nuclei will provide foundational data about nuclei in the path of r-process nucleosynthesis in supernovae. Finally, the advent of TeraScale computing resources has made it possible to seriously consider the realistic multidimensional simulations that will be required to ascertain the explosion mechanism and understand all of its accompanying observables.

Supernova Science   Radiation Transport   Nuclear Science   Computation and Visualization