Abstract
Core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), the culmination of massive stellar evolution, are the principle actors in the story of our elemental origins. Our understanding of these events, while still incomplete, centers around a neutrino-driven central engine which is highly hydrodynamically-unstable. Simulations of increasing sophistication show a shock that stalls for hundreds of milliseconds before reviving. Though brought back to life by neutrino heating, the development of the supernova explosion is inextricably linked to three dimensional fluid flows. Regrettably, much of our understanding of the nucleosynthesis that occurs in these explosions, and their impact on galactic chemical evolution, is based on spherically symmetric simulations with parameterized explosions, ignoring much that has been learned about the central engine of these supernovae over the past two decades. Here we discuss recent results from two-dimensional CCSN simulations using our CHIMERA code, as well as ongoing three-dimensional simulations, and discuss how the multidimensional character of the explosions directly impacts the nucleosynthesis and other observables of core-collapse supernovae.
