2023/07/11
Keio University
The elements that make up our human bodies, such as carbon and oxygen, were originally created by nuclear fusion reactions inside massive stars and exist because they were scattered into space by core-collapse supernova explosions, the final stage of stellar evolution. However, the mechanism of supernova explosions is still not well understood theoretically.
Associate Professor Naoki Yamamoto of the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University and Assistant Research Fellow Di-Lun Yang of Academia Sinica (Taiwan) have developed a new theoretical method to systematically analyze the time evolution of quantum many-body systems of elementary particles, taking into account the chirality of particles such as electrons and neutrinos. By applying this method to core-collapse supernovae, they have revealed a phenomenon in which an electric current is generated in the direction of the magnetic field due to the recoil from neutrino emission. Furthermore, based on this phenomenon, a mechanism has been proposed that could simultaneously explain the magnetic fields of magnetars, which are celestial objects with the strongest magnetic fields in the universe, and an astronomical phenomenon called the pulsar kick. These new phenomena and mechanisms are expected to provide important insights for understanding the evolution of core-collapse supernovae.
The results of this research were published in the online edition of the American Physical Society's journal "Physical Review Letters" on July 6, 2023 (local time).
Please see below for the full press release.