Neutrino-driven supernova explosions powered by nuclear reactions

We have investigated the revival of a shock wave by nuclear burning reactions at the central region of core-collapse supernovae. For this purpose, we performed hydrodynamic simulations of core collapse and bounce for 15 M⊙ progenitor model, using ZEUS-MP code in axi-symmetric coordinates. Our numerical code is equipped with a simple nuclear reaction network including 13 α nuclei form 4He to 56Ni, and accounting for energy feedback from nuclear reactions as well as neutrino heating and cooling. We found that the energy released by nuclear reactions is significantly helpful in accelerating shock waves and is able to produce energetic explosion even if the input neutrino luminosity is low.