Modeling nuclear dynamics and weak interaction rates during the supernova collapse phase

Motivated by the success of kinetic theory in the description of observables in intermediate and high energy heavy ion collisions, we use kinetic theory to model the dynamics of the early stage of a type II core collapse supernova. The algorithms employed to model the collapse, the rational for choosing them, and the results of this preliminary calculation are discussed. The main innovation in the present calculation is to introduce a coupled channel weak interaction reaction network of heavy nuclei, which supersedes the conventionally used approximation of a representative heavy nucleus used in neutrino Boltzmann transport.