Constraint on the maximum mass of neutron stars using GW170817 event

We revisit the constraint on the maximum mass of cold spherical neutron stars coming from the observational results of GW170817. We develop a new framework for the analysis by employing both energy and angular momentum conservation laws as well as solid results of latest numerical-relativity simulations and of neutron stars in equilibrium. The new analysis shows that the maximum mass of cold spherical neutron stars can be only weakly constrained as M_{\rm max} \alt 2.3M_\odot. Our present result illustrates that the merger remnant neutron star at the onset of collapse to a black hole is not necessarily rapidly rotating and shows that we have to take into account the angular momentum conservation law to impose the constraint on the maximum mass of neutron stars.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, matches the version accepted by PRD for publicatio

Enrichment of Jupiter’s Atmosphere by Late Planetesimal Bombardment

Jupiter’s atmosphere is enriched with heavy elements by a factor of about 3 compared to a protosolar composition. The origin of this enrichment and whether it represents the bulk composition of the planetary envelope remain unknown. Internal structure models of Jupiter suggest that its envelope is separated from the deep interior and that the planet is not fully mixed. This implies that Jupiter’s atmosphere was enriched with heavy elements just before the end of its formation. Such enrichment can be a result of late planetesimal accretion. However, in situ Jupiter formation models suggest a decreasing accretion rate with increasing planetary mass, which cannot explain Jupiter’s atmospheric enrichment. In this study, we model Jupiter’s formation and show that the migration of proto-Jupiter from ∼20 au to its current location can lead to late planetesimal accretion and atmospheric enrichment. Late planetesimal accretion does not occur if proto-Jupiter migrates only a few astronomical units. We suggest that if Jupiter’s outermost layer is fully mixed and is relatively thin (up to ∼20% of its mass), such late accretion can explain its measured atmospheric composition. It is therefore possible that Jupiter underwent significant orbital migration followed by late planetesimal accretion

Mass Ejection from the Remnant of a Binary Neutron Star Merger: Viscous-Radiation Hydrodynamics Study

We perform long-term general relativistic neutrino radiation hydrodynamics simulations (in axisymmetry) for a massive neutron star (MNS) surrounded by a torus, which is a canonical remnant formed after the binary neutron star merger. We take into account the effects of viscosity, which is likely to arise in the merger remnant due to magnetohydrodynamical turbulence. As the initial condition, we employ the azimuthally averaged data of the MNS-torus system derived in a three-dimensional, numerical-relativity simulation for the binary neutron star merger. The viscous effect plays key roles for the remnant evolution and mass ejection from it in two phases of the evolution. In the first $t\lesssim10$ ms, a differential rotation state of the MNS is changed to a rigidly rotating state, and as a result, a sound wave, which subsequently becomes a shock wave, is formed in the vicinity of the MNS due to the variation of the quasi-equilibrium state of the MNS. The shock wave induces significant mass ejection of mass $\sim(0.5-2.0)\times 10^{-2}M_\odot$ for the alpha viscosity parameter of $0.01-0.04$. For the longer-term evolution with $\sim 0.1-10$ s, a significant fraction of the torus material is ejected. The ejecta mass is likely to be of order $10^{-2}M_\odot$, so that the total mass of the viscosity-driven ejecta could dominate that of the dynamical ejecta of mass $\lesssim 10^{-2}M_\odot$. The electron fraction, $Y_e$, of the ejecta is always high enough ($Y_e\gtrsim0.25$) that this post-merger ejecta is lanthanide-poor; hence, the opacity of the ejecta is likely to be $\sim 10-100$ times lower than that of the dynamical ejecta. This indicates that the electromagnetic signal from the ejecta would be rapidly evolving, bright, and blue if it is observed from a small viewing angle ($\lesssim 45^\circ$) for which the effect of the dynamical ejecta is minor.Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

A Monte-Carlo based relativistic radiation hydrodynamics code with a higher-order scheme

We develop a new relativistic radiation hydrodynamics code based on the Monte-Carlo algorithm. In this code, we implement a new scheme to achieve the second-order accuracy in time in the limit of a large packet number for solving the interaction between matter and radiation. This higher-order time integration scheme is implemented in the manner to guarantee the energy-momentum conservation to the precision of the geodesic integrator. The spatial dependence of radiative processes, such as the packet propagation, emission, absorption, and scattering, are also taken into account up to the second-order accuracy. We validate our code by solving various test-problems following the previous studies; one-zone thermalization, dynamical diffusion, radiation dragging, radiation mediated shock-tube, shock-tube in the optically thick limit, and Eddington limit problems. We show that our code reproduces physically appropriate results with reasonable accuracy and also demonstrate that the second-order accuracy in time and space is indeed achieved with our implementation for one-zone and one-dimensional problems.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR

Collapse of rotating massive stars leading to black hole formation and energetic supernovae

We explore a possible scenario of the explosion as a result of core collapses of rotating massive stars that leave a black hole by performing a radiation-viscous-hydrodynamics simulation in numerical relativity. We take moderately and rapidly rotating compact pre-collapse stellar models derived in stellar evolution calculations as the initial conditions. We find that the viscous heating in the disk formed around the central black hole powers an outflow. For rapidly rotating models, the explosion energy is $\gtrsim 3\times10^{51}$ erg, which is comparable to or larger than that of typical stripped-envelope supernovae, indicating that a fraction of such supernovae may be explosions powered by black-hole accretion disks. The explosion energy is still increasing at the end of the simulations with a rate of $>10^{50}$ erg/s, and thus, it may reach $\sim10^{52}$ erg. The nucleosynthesis calculation shows that the mass of $^{56}$Ni amounts to $\gtrsim 0.1M_\odot$, which, together with the high explosion energy, satisfies the required amount for broad-lined type Ic supernovae. The moderately rotating models predict small ejecta mass of order $0.1M_\odot$ and explosion energy of $\lesssim 10^{51}$ erg. Due to the small ejecta mass, these models may predict a short-timescale transient with the rise time 3$-$5 d. It can lead to a bright ($\sim10^{44}$ erg/s) transient like superluminous supernovae in the presence of dense massive circum-stellar medium. Irrespective of the models, the lowest value of the electron fraction of the ejecta is $\gtrsim 0.4$, and thus, the synthesis of heavy $r$-process elements is not found in our calculation.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Properties of neutrino transfer in a deformed remnant of neutron star merger

We study properties of neutrino transfer in a remnant of neutron star merger, consisting of a massive neutron star and a surrounding torus. We perform numerical simulations of the neutrino transfer by solving the Boltzmann equation with momentum-space angles and energies of neutrinos for snapshots of the merger remnant having elongated shapes. The evaluation of the neutrino distributions in the multi-dimensions enable us to provide the detailed information of angle and energy spectra and neutrino reaction rates. We demonstrate features of asymmetric neutrino fluxes from the deformed remnant and investigate the neutrino emission region by determining the neutrinosphere for each energy. We examine the emission and absorption of neutrinos to identify important ingredients of heating rates through neutrino irradiation. We show that the contributions of $\mu$- and $\tau$-types neutrinos are important for the heating in the region above the massive neutron star. We also examine the angle moments and the Eddington tensor calculated directly by the neutrino distribution functions and compare them with those obtained by a moment closure approach, which is often used in the study of neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics. We show that the components of the Eddington tensor have non-monotonic behaviors and the approximation of the closure relation may become inaccurate for high energy neutrinos, whose fluxes are highly aspherical due to the extended merger remnant.Comment: 28 pages, 33 figures, revised version accepted for publication in Ap

Supernova-like explosion of massive rotating stars from disks surrounding a black hole

We perform a new general-relativistic viscous-radiation hydrodynamics simulation for supernova-like explosion associated with stellar core collapse of rotating massive stars to a system of a black hole and a massive torus paying particular attention to large-mass progenitor stars with the zero-age main-sequence mass of $M_\mathrm{ZAMS}=$20, 35, and 45$M_\odot$ of Ref.~\cite{Aguilera-Dena2020oct}. Assuming that a black hole is formed in a short timescale after the onset of the stellar collapse, the new simulations are started from initial data of a spinning black hole and infalling matter that self-consistently satisfy the constraint equations of general relativity. It is found that with a reasonable size of the viscous parameter, the supernova-like explosion is driven by the viscous heating effect in the torus around the black hole irrespective of the progenitor mass. The typical explosion energy and ejecta mass for the large-mass cases ($M_\mathrm{ZAMS}=35$ and $45M_\odot$) are $\sim 10^{52}$ erg and $\sim 5M_\odot$, respectively, with $^{56}$Ni mass larger than $0.15M_\odot$. These are consistent with the observational data of stripped-envelope and high-energy supernovae such as broad-lined type Ic supernovae. This indicates that rotating stellar collapses of massive stars to a black hole surrounded by a massive torus can be a central engine for high-energy supernovae. By artificially varying the angular velocity of the initial data, we explore the dependence of the explosion energy and ejecta mass on the initial angular momentum and find that the large explosion energy $\sim 10^{52}$ erg and large $^{56}$Ni mass $\geq 0.15M_\odot$ are possible only when a large-mass compact torus with mass $\gtrsim 1M_\odot$ is formed.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, submitted to PR