1,231 research outputs found
Neutrino oscillation signatures of oxygen-neon-magnesium supernovae
We discuss the flavor conversion of neutrinos from core collapse supernovae
that have oxygen-neon-magnesium (ONeMg) cores. Using the numerically calculated
evolution of the star up to 650 ms post bounce, we find that, for the normal
mass hierarchy, the electron neutrino flux in a detector shows signatures of
two typical features of an ONeMg-core supernova: a sharp step in the density
profile at the base of the He shell and a faster shock wave propagation
compared to iron core supernovae. Before the shock hits the density step (t ~
150 ms), the survival probability of electron neutrinos is about 0.68, in
contrast to values of 0.32 or less for an iron core supernova. The passage of
the shock through the step and its subsequent propagation cause a decrease of
the survival probability and a decrease of the amplitude of oscillations in the
Earth, reflecting the transition to a more adiabatic propagation inside the
star. These changes affect the lower energy neutrinos first; they are faster
and more sizable for larger theta_13. They are unique of ONeMg-core supernovae,
and give the possibility to test the speed of the shock wave. The time
modulation of the Earth effect and its negative sign at the neutronization peak
are the most robust signatures in a detector.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures (16 figure files). Text and graphics added for
illustration and clarification; Results unchanged. Version accepted for
publication in Physical Review
Theoretical Support for the Hydrodynamic Mechanism of Pulsar Kicks
The collapse of a massive star's core, followed by a neutrino-driven,
asymmetric supernova explosion, can naturally lead to pulsar recoils and
neutron star kicks. Here, we present a two-dimensional, radiation-hydrodynamic
simulation in which core collapse leads to significant acceleration of a
fully-formed, nascent neutron star (NS) via an induced, neutrino-driven
explosion. During the explosion, a ~10% anisotropy in the low-mass,
high-velocity ejecta lead to recoil of the high-mass neutron star. At the end
of our simulation, the NS has achieved a velocity of ~150 km s and is
accelerating at ~350 km s, but has yet to reach the ballistic regime.
The recoil is due almost entirely to hydrodynamical processes, with anisotropic
neutrino emission contributing less than 2% to the overall kick magnitude.
Since the observed distribution of neutron star kick velocities peaks at
~300-400 km s, recoil due to anisotropic core-collapse supernovae
provides a natural, non-exotic mechanism with which to obtain neutron star
kicks.Comment: Replaced with Phys. Rev. D accepted versio
Microscopic calculation of neutrino mean free path inside hot neutron matter
We calculate the neutrino mean free path and the Equation of State of pure
neutron matter at finite temperature within a selfconsistent scheme based on
the Brueckner--Hartree--Fock approximation. We employ the nucleon-nucleon part
of the recent realistic baryon-baryon interaction (model NSC97e) constructed by
the Nijmegen group. The temperatures considered range from 10 to 80 MeV. We
report on the calculation of the mean field, the residual interaction and the
neutrino mean free path including short and long range correlations given by
the Brueckner--Hartree--Fock plus Random Phase Approximation (BHF+RPA)
framework. This is the first fully consistent calculation in hot neutron matter
dedicated to neutrino mean free path. We compare systematically our results to
those obtain with the D1P Gogny effective interaction, which is independent of
the temperature. The main differences between the present calculation and those
with nuclear effective interactions come from the RPA corrections to BHF (a
factor of about 8) while the temperature lack of consistency accounts for a
factor of about 2
Global Nonradial Instabilities of Dynamically Collapsing Gas Spheres
Self-similar solutions provide good descriptions for the gravitational
collapse of spherical clouds or stars when the gas obeys a polytropic equation
of state, (with ). We study the behaviors of
nonradial perturbations in the similarity solutions of Larson, Penston and
Yahil, which describe the evolution of the collapsing cloud prior to core
formation. Our global stability analysis reveals the existence of unstable
bar-modes () when . In particular, for the collapse of
isothermal spheres, which applies to the early stages of star formation, the
density perturbation relative to the background, , increases as ,
where denotes the epoch of core formation, and is the cloud
central density. Thus, the isothermal cloud tends to evolve into an ellipsoidal
shape (prolate bar or oblate disk, depending on initial conditions) as the
collapse proceeds. In the context of Type II supernovae, core collapse is
described by the equation of state, and our analysis
indicates that there is no growing mode (with density perturbation) in the
collapsing core before the proto-neutron star forms, although nonradial
perturbations can grow during the subsequent accretion of the outer core and
envelope onto the neutron star. We also carry out a global stability analysis
for the self-similar expansion-wave solution found by Shu, which describes the
post-collapse accretion (``inside-out'' collapse) of isothermal gas onto a
protostar. We show that this solution is unstable to perturbations of all
's, although the growth rates are unknown.Comment: 28 pages including 7 ps figures; Minor changes in the discussion; To
be published in ApJ (V.540, Sept.10, 2000 issue
Exploiting the neutronization burst of a galactic supernova
One of the robust features found in simulations of core-collapse supernovae
(SNe) is the prompt neutronization burst, i.e. the first milliseconds
after bounce when the SN emits with very high luminosity mainly
neutrinos. We examine the dependence of this burst on variations in the input
of current SN models and find that recent improvements of the electron capture
rates as well as uncertainties in the nuclear equation of state or a variation
of the progenitor mass have only little effect on the signature of the
neutronization peak in a megaton water Cherenkov detector for different
neutrino mixing schemes. We show that exploiting the time-structure of the
neutronization peak allows one to identify the case of a normal mass hierarchy
and large 13-mixing angle , where the peak is absent. The
robustness of the predicted total event number in the neutronization burst
makes a measurement of the distance to the SN feasible with a precision of
about 5%, even in the likely case that the SN is optically obscured.Comment: 14 pages, 17 eps figures, revtex4 style, minor comments adde
Multi-Dimensional Simulations of the Accretion-Induced Collapse of White Dwarfs to Neutron Stars
We present 2.5D radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of the accretion-induced
collapse (AIC) of white dwarfs, starting from 2D rotational equilibrium
configurations of a 1.46-Msun and a 1.92-Msun model. Electron capture leads to
the collapse to nuclear densities of these cores within a few tens of
milliseconds. The shock generated at bounce moves slowly, but steadily,
outwards. Within 50-100ms, the stalled shock breaks out of the white dwarf
along the poles. The blast is followed by a neutrino-driven wind that develops
within the white dwarf, in a cone of ~40deg opening angle about the poles, with
a mass loss rate of 5-8 x 10^{-3} Msun/yr. The ejecta have an entropy on the
order of 20-50 k_B/baryon, and an electron fraction distribution that is
bimodal. By the end of the simulations, at >600ms after bounce, the explosion
energy has reached 3-4 x 10^{49}erg and the total ejecta mass has reached a few
times 0.001Msun. We estimate the asymptotic explosion energies to be lower than
10^{50}erg, significantly lower than those inferred for standard core collapse.
The AIC of white dwarfs thus represents one instance where a neutrino mechanism
leads undoubtedly to a successful, albeit weak, explosion.
We document in detail the numerous effects of the fast rotation of the
progenitors: The neutron stars are aspherical; the ``nu_mu'' and anti-nu_e
neutrino luminosities are reduced compared to the nu_e neutrino luminosity; the
deleptonized region has a butterfly shape; the neutrino flux and electron
fraction depend strongly upon latitude (a la von Zeipel); and a quasi-Keplerian
0.1-0.5-Msun accretion disk is formed.Comment: 25 pages, 19 figures, accpeted to ApJ, high resolution of the paper
and movies available at http://hermes.as.arizona.edu/~luc/aic/aic.htm
A New Monte Carlo Method for Time-Dependent Neutrino Radiation Transport
Monte Carlo approaches to radiation transport have several attractive properties compared to deterministic
methods. These include simplicity of implementation, high accuracy, and good parallel scaling. Moreover,
Monte Carlo methods can handle complicated geometries and are relatively easy to extend to multiple spatial
dimensions, which makes them particularly interesting in modeling complex multi-dimensional astrophysical
phenomena such as core-collapse supernovae. The aim of this paper is to explore Monte Carlo methods for
modeling neutrino transport in core-collapse supernovae. We generalize the implicit Monte Carlo photon transport
scheme of Fleck & Cummings and gray discrete-diffusion scheme of Densmore et al. to energy-, time-,
and velocity-dependent neutrino transport. Using our 1D spherically-symmetric implementation, we show that,
similar to the photon transport case, the implicit scheme enables significantly larger timesteps compared with
explicit time discretization, without sacrificing accuracy, while the discrete-diffusion method leads to significant
speed-ups at high optical depth. Our results suggest that a combination of spectral, velocity-dependent,
implicit Monte Carlo and discrete-diffusion Monte Carlo methods represents an attractive approach for use in
neutrino radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of core-collapse supernovae. Our velocity-dependent scheme
can easily be adapted to photon transport
Influence of light nuclei on neutrino-driven supernova outflows
We study the composition of the outer layers of a protoneutron star and show that light nuclei are present in substantial amounts. The composition is dominated by nucleons, deuterons, tritons and alpha particles; 3He is present in smaller amounts. This composition can be studied in laboratory experiments with new neutron-rich radioactive beams that can reproduce similar densities and temperatures. After including the corresponding neutrino interactions, we demonstrate that light nuclei have a small impact on the average energy of the emitted electron neutrinos, but are significant for the average energy of antineutrinos. During the early post-explosion phase, the average energy of electron antineutrinos is slightly increased, while at later times during the protoneutron star cooling it is reduced by about 1 MeV. The consequences of these changes for nucleosynthesis in neutrino-driven supernova outflows are discussed
Core-Collapse Simulations of Rotating Stars
We present the results from a series of two-dimensional core-collapse
simulations using a rotating progenitor star. We find that the convection in
these simulations is less vigorous because a) rotation weakens the core bounce
which seeds the neutrino-driven convection and b) the angular momentum profile
in the rotating core stabilizes against convection. The limited convection
leads to explosions which occur later and are weaker than the explosions
produced from the collapse of non-rotating cores. However, because the
convection is constrained to the polar regions, when the explosion occurs, it
is stronger along the polar axis. This asymmetric explosion can explain the
polarization measurements of core-collapse supernovae. These asymmetries also
provide a natural mechanism to mix the products of nucleosynthesis out into the
helium and hydrogen layers of the star. We also discuss the role the collapse
of these rotating stars play on the generation of magnetic fields and neutron
star kicks. Given a range of progenitor rotation periods, we predict a range of
supernova energies for the same progenitor mass. The critical mass for black
hole formation also depends upon the rotation speed of the progenitor.Comment: 16 pages text + 13 figures, submitted to Ap
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