The joint observation of core-collapse supernovae with gamma-ray bursts shows that jets can be launched in the aftermath of stellar core collapse, likely by a newly formed black hole that accretes matter from the star. Such gamma-ray bursts have only been observed accompanying Type Ibc supernovae, indicating a stellar progenitor that lost its hydrogen envelope before collapse. According to recent hypothesis, it is possible that jets are launched in core-collapse events even when the progenitors still retain their hydrogen envelopes; however, such jets are not able to burrow through the star and will be stalled into the interior of the progenitor star before escaping. These jets are called choked jets. High-energy neutrinos produced by such choked jets could escape the stellar envelope and could be observed. Here, we examine how multimessenger searches for high-energy neutrinos and core-collapse supernovae can detect or limit the fraction of stellar collapses that produce jets. We find that a high fraction of jet production is already limited by previous observational campaigns. We explore possibilities with future observations using Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, IceCube, and Km3NET.
more »
« less
The Division between Weak and Strong Explosions from Failed Supernovae
Abstract Some massive stars likely fail to produce core-collapse supernovae, but these failed supernovae (FSNe) can generate an electromagnetic outburst prior to the disappearance of the star, as the mass lost to neutrinos during the stellar core collapse results in the formation and breakout of a second shock. We show that, when the mass lost to neutrinos is sufficiently small, there are two self-similar solutions that describe the propagation of a weak shock into a hydrodynamically expanding envelope that simultaneously yield accretion onto the black hole. The larger Mach number solution is unstable and yields the minimum Mach number that a shock must have to strengthen into the energy-conserving regime. Above a critical mass loss, there are no weak-shock solutions, implying that there are only strong explosions if the neutrino mass loss is above a critical value, and this value is a few percent of the mass of the star (and is physically achievable) for typical parameters. Our results imply that the fate of the explosion from an FSN—weak with little to no mass ejection or strong with the expulsion of the majority of the envelope—is a sensitive function of the stellar properties and the neutrino mass loss. We also show that there is a second type of self-similar solution for the shock that results in thesettlingof the gas near the compact object, which may be applicable to nonterminal stellar eruptions and the response of a gaseous disk to gravitational-wave induced mass loss from a binary black hole merger.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2006684
- PAR ID:
- 10465052
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 955
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 110
- Size(s):
- Article No. 110
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
ABSTRACT A core-collapse supernova is generated by the passage of a shock wave through the envelope of a massive star, where the shock wave is initially launched from the ‘bounce’ of the neutron star formed during the collapse of the stellar core. Instead of successfully exploding the star, however, numerical investigations of core-collapse supernovae find that this shock tends to ‘stall’ at small radii (≲10 neutron star radii), with stellar material accreting on to the central object through the standing shock. Here, we present time-steady, adiabatic solutions for the density, pressure, and velocity of the shocked fluid that accretes on to the compact object through the stalled shock, and we include the effects of general relativity in the Schwarzschild metric. Similar to previous works that were carried out in the Newtonian limit, we find that the gas ‘settles’ interior to the stalled shock; in the relativistic regime analysed here, the velocity asymptotically approaches zero near the Schwarzschild radius. These solutions can represent accretion on to a material surface if the radius of the compact object is outside of its event horizon, such as a neutron star; we also discuss the possibility that these solutions can approximately represent the accretion of gas on to a newly formed black hole following a core-collapse event. Our findings and solutions are particularly relevant in weak and failed supernovae, where the shock is pushed to small radii and relativistic effects are large.more » « less
-
We review the computation of and associated uncertainties in the current understanding of the relic neutrino background due to core-collapse supernovae, black hole formation and neutron star merger events. We consider the current status of uncertainties due to the nuclear equation of state (EoS), the progenitor masses, the source supernova neutrino spectrum, the cosmological star formation rate, the stellar initial mass function, neutrino oscillations, and neutrino self-interactions. We summarize the current viability of future neutrino detectors to distinguish the nuclear EoS and the temperature of supernova neutrinos via the detected relic supernova neutrino spectrum.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Abstract The proposal that core collapse supernovae are neutrino driven is still the subject of active investigation more than 50 years after the seminal paper by Colgate and White. The modern version of this paradigm, which we owe to Wilson, proposes that the supernova shock wave is powered by neutrino heating, mediated by the absorption of electron-flavor neutrinos and antineutrinos emanating from the proto-neutron star surface, or neutrinosphere. Neutrino weak interactions with the stellar core fluid, the theory of which is still evolving, are flavor and energy dependent. The associated neutrino mean free paths extend over many orders of magnitude and are never always small relative to the stellar core radius. Thus, neutrinos are never always fluid like. Instead, a kinetic description of them in terms of distribution functions that determine the number density of neutrinos in the six-dimensional phase space of position, direction, and energy, for both neutrinos and antineutrinos of each flavor, or in terms of angular moments of these neutrino distributions that instead provide neutrino number densities in the four-dimensional phase-space subspace of position and energy, is needed. In turn, the computational challenge is twofold: (i) to map the kinetic equations governing the evolution of these distributions or moments onto discrete representations that are stable, accurate, and, perhaps most important, respect physical laws such as conservation of lepton number and energy and the Fermi–Dirac nature of neutrinos and (ii) to develop efficient, supercomputer-architecture-aware solution methods for the resultant nonlinear algebraic equations. In this review, we present the current state of the art in attempts to meet this challenge.more » « less
-
The detection of the binary black hole merger GW190521, with primary mass 85+21−14 M⊙ , proved the existence of black holes in the theoretically predicted pair-instability gap ( ∼60−120M⊙ ) of their mass spectrum. Some recent studies suggest that such massive black holes could be produced by the collision of an evolved star with a carbon-oxygen core and a main sequence star. Such a post-coalescence star could end its life avoiding the pair-instability regime and with a direct collapse of its very massive envelope. It is still not clear, however, how the collision shapes the structure of the newly produced star and how much mass is actually lost in the impact. We investigated this issue by means of hydrodynamical simulations with the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code StarSmasher, finding that a head-on collision can remove up to 12% of the initial mass of the colliding stars. This is a non-negligible percentage of the initial mass and could affect the further evolution of the stellar remnant, particularly in terms of the final mass of a possibly forming black hole. We also found that the main sequence star can plunge down to the outer boundary of the carbon-oxygen core of the primary, changing the inner chemical composition of the remnant. The collision expels the outer layers of the primary, leaving a remnant with an helium-enriched envelope (reaching He fractions of about 0.4 at the surface). These more complex abundance profiles can be directly used in stellar evolution simulations of the collision product.more » « less
An official website of the United States government
