An experimental testbed for the study of hydrodynamic issues in supernovae

More than a decade after the explosion of supernova 1987A, unresolved discrepancies still remain in attempts to numerically simulate the mixing processes initiated by the passage of a very strong shock through the layered structure of the progenitor star. Numerically computed velocities of the radioactive Ni-56 and Co-56, produced by shock-induced explosive burning within the silicon layer, for example, are still more than 50% too low as compared with the measured velocities. To resolve such discrepancies between observation and simulation, an experimental testbed has been designed on the Omega Laser for the study of hydrodynamic issues of importance to supernovae (SNe). In this paper, results are presented from a series of scaled laboratory experiments designed to isolate and explore several issues in the hydrodynamics of supernova explosions. The results of the experiments are compared with numerical simulations and are generally found to be in reasonable agreement. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.