These <program-name>.core files are copies of memory stored for a post-mortem analysis at the moment of a failure of <program-name>. If you are a programmer, these can be used to help determine a root cause for the failure. The Gnu Debugger -- gdb -- can read the .core file and the program's compiled binary file to produce helpful information. If you have the source code and compile the program with its symbol tables, you can use gdb to step through the program and .core file, line by line, and see values change in individual variables and CPU registers. See the gdb(1) man page and `$ info gdb` for more information.
If you are not a programmer, delete the .core files, they will not be of any use. You can set your shell to prevent these .core files from being saved at all, e.g. `$ ulimit -c 0`. See your shell's man page for more information.
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