Nuclear structure and the fate of core collapse (Type II) supernova

For a long time Gerry Brown and his collaborator Hans Bethe considered the question of the final fate of a core collapse (Type II) supernova. Recalling ideas from nuclear structure on Kaon condensate and a soft equation of state of the dense nuclear matter they concluded that progenitor stars with mass as low as 17–18M⊙17–18M⊙ (including supernova 1987A) could collapse to a small mass black hole with a mass just beyond 1.5M⊙1.5M⊙, the upper bound they derive for a neutron star. We discuss another nuclear structure effect that determines the carbon to oxygen ratio (C/O) at the end of helium burning. This ratio also determines the fate of a Type II supernova with a carbon rich progenitor star producing a neutron star and oxygen rich collapsing to a black hole. While the C/O ratio is one of the most important nuclear inputs to stellar evolution it is still not known with sufficient accuracy. We discuss future efforts to measure with gamma-beam and TPC detector of the C12(α,γ)O16 reaction that determines the C/O ratio in stellar helium burning.