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Abstract Formed in the aftermath of a core-collapse supernova or neutron star merger, a hot proto–neutron star (PNS) launches an outflow driven by neutrino heating lasting for up to tens of seconds. Though such winds are considered potential sites for the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements via the rapid neutron capture process (r-process), previous work has shown that unmagnetized PNS winds fail to achieve the necessary combination of high entropy and/or short dynamical timescale in the seed nucleus formation region. We present three-dimensional general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamical simulations of PNS winds which include the effects of a dynamically strong (B≳ 1015G) dipole magnetic field. After initializing the magnetic field, the wind quickly develops a helmet-streamer configuration, characterized by outflows along open polar magnetic field lines and a “closed” zone of trapped plasma at lower latitudes. Neutrino heating within the closed zone causes the thermal pressure of the trapped material to rise in time compared to the polar outflow regions, ultimately leading to the expulsion of this matter from the closed zone on a timescale of ∼60 ms, consistent with the predictions of Thompson. The high entropies of these transient ejecta are still growing at the end of our simulations and are sufficient to enable a successful second-peakr-process in at least a modest ≳1% of the equatorial wind ejecta.
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Three-dimensional General-relativistic Simulations of Neutrino-driven Winds from Rotating Proto-neutron Stars
Abstract We explore the effects of rapid rotation on the properties of neutrino-heated winds from proto-neutron stars (PNS) formed in core-collapse supernovae or neutron-star mergers by means of three-dimensional general-relativistic hydrodynamical simulations with M0 neutrino transport. We focus on conditions characteristic of a few seconds into the PNS cooling evolution when the neutrino luminosities obey L ν e + L ν ¯ e ≈ 7 × 10 51 erg s −1 , and over which most of the wind mass loss will occur. After an initial transient phase, all of our models reach approximately steady-state outflow solutions with positive energies and sonic surfaces captured on the computational grid. Our nonrotating and slower rotating models (angular velocity relative to Keplerian Ω/Ω K ≲ 0.4; spin period P ≳ 2 ms) generate approximately spherically symmetric outflows with properties in good agreement with previous PNS wind studies. By contrast, our most rapidly spinning PNS solutions (Ω/Ω K ≳ 0.75; P ≈ 1 ms) generate outflows focused in the rotational equatorial plane with much higher mass-loss rates (by over an order of magnitude), lower velocities, lower entropy, and lower asymptotic electron fractions, than otherwise similar nonrotating wind solutions. Although such rapidly spinning PNS are likely rare in nature, their atypical nucleosynthetic composition and outsized mass yields could render them important contributors of light neutron-rich nuclei compared to more common slowly rotating PNS birth. Our calculations pave the way to including the combined effects of rotation and a dynamically important large-scale magnetic field on the wind properties within a three-dimensional GRMHD framework.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2002577
- PAR ID:
- 10437194
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 931
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 104
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac69da
