Abstract

Supernovae (SNe), along with their remnants, are central in many active fields of research as the key sources of cosmic high-energy particles and heavy elements, the privileged sites of cosmic dust formation, and the primary agents of chemical and dynamical evolution of galaxies. Moreover, they are among the rare celestial events visible with the naked eye. Yet, many open issues still need to be deeply explored such as the nature of the SN progenitors and the final stages of stellar evolution, explosion mechanisms and nucleosynthesis, shock acceleration processes and the question of the origin of cosmic rays.