MISSING BLACK HOLES UNVEIL THE SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION MECHANISM

By Krzysztof Belczyński, G. Wiktorowicz, Chris L. Fryer, D. Holz, Vicky Kalogera. 2011

175 citations recorded by the source corpus.

It is firmly established that the stellar mass distribution is smooth, covering the range 0.1–100 M☉. It is to be expected that the masses of the ensuing compact remnants correlate with the masses of their progenitor stars, and thus it is generally thought that the remnant masses should be smoothly distributed from the lightest white dwarfs to the heaviest black holes (BHs). However, this intuitive prediction is not borne out by observed data. In the rapidly growing population of remnants with observationally determined masses, a striking mass gap has emerged at the boundary between neutron stars (NSs) and BHs. The heaviest NSs reach a maximum of two solar masses, while the lightest BHs are at least five solar masses. Over a decade after the discovery, the gap has become a significant challenge to our understanding of compact object formation. We offer new insights into the physical processes that bifurcate the formation of remnants into lower-mass NSs and heavier BHs. Combining the results of stellar modeling with hydrodynamic simulations of supernovae, we both explain the existence of the gap and also put stringent constraints on the inner workings of the supernova explosion mechanism. In particular, we show that core-collapse supernovae are launched within 100–200 ms of the initial stellar collapse, implying that the explosions are driven by instabilities with a rapid (10–20 ms) growth time. Alternatively, if future observations fill in the gap, this will be an indication that these instabilities develop over a longer (>200 ms) timescale.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a8e05ef241ba747a3fdce4ec984d3cdab8aef210

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Citations in the corpus

The effect of pair-instability mass loss on black-hole mergers (2016, methodology): “…updates to the treatment of CE evolution (Dominik et al. 2012), the compact object masses produced by core collapse/supernovae (Fryer et al. 2012; Belczynski et al. 2012), stellar binary initial conditions set by observations (de Mink & Belczynski 2015), and observationally constrained star…”
The first gravitational-wave source from the isolated evolution of two stars in the 40–100 solar mass range (2016, unknown): “inaries (17), a physical measure of the common envelope (CE) binding energy (31, 32), and a rapid explosion supernova model that reproduces the observed mass gap between neutron stars and black holes (19, 33). Our updated mass spectrum of black holes shows a strong dependence on the metallicity of t”
High-mass X-ray binaries in the Milky Way (2013, background): “Finally the small fraction of black-hole HMXB systems, probably originating from very high mass stars, and their higher masses when compared to neutron stars, can be related to the physics of supernova explosions (Belczynski et al., 2012).”
Search for Gravitational Lensing Signatures in LIGO-Virgo Binary Black Hole Events (2019, background): “The lower mass limit can be a consequence of rapid supernova mechanism, which explains the mass gap ∼ 2 − 5M in X-ray measurements (Belczynski et al. 2012; Fryer et al. 2012; Özel et al. 2010).”
Evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates for LIGO/Virgo binary black holes (2017, background): “They will either end up as single objects (in which BH merges with its massive companion star), or at best they may form BH-NS systems (Belczynski et al. 2012b).”
Massive runaway and walkaway stars (2018, background): “Examples include, but are not limited to, Vanbeveren (1982), De Donder et al. (1997), Fryer & Kalogera (1997, 2001), Fryer et al. (2012), Belczynski et al. (2012), Repetto et al. (2012), Fragos et al. (2013), Grudzinska et al. (2015), Boubert & Evans (2018).”
Merging binary black holes formed through chemically homogeneous evolution in short-period stellar binaries (2015, background): “Both the mass fallback fraction (e.g., Fryer 1999; Belczynski et al. 2012; Fryer et al. 2012) and black-hole natal kicks (e.g, Repetto et al. 2012; Janka 2013; MillerJones 2014) accompanying BH-forming core collapse supernovae are highly uncertain.”
Where Are LIGO’s Big Black Holes? (2017, methodology): “The presence of a mass gap between NSs and BHs has critical implications for supernova explosion theory (Belczynski et al. 2012), and there are several proposed methods to probe this mass gap with gravitational-wave observations of compact binaries (Littenberg et al. 2015; Mandel et al. 2017;…”
Double neutron stars: merger rates revisited (2017, methodology): “Again a fraction of binaries does not form a DNS, as the secondary star ends up as a WD or BH, even more get disrupted during the supernova explosion.”
DOUBLE COMPACT OBJECTS. II. COSMOLOGICAL MERGER RATES (2013, methodology): “The main feature of this engine is that it produces a continuous mass spectrum of remnant objects (Belczynski et al. 2012).”
BPASS predictions for binary black hole mergers (2016, background): “There have also been some suggestions that there is a gap in the black hole masses expected from stellar evolution, i.e. that there are no black holes in the mass range between 3 to 5M⊙ (Belczynski et al. 2012).”
COMPACT BINARY MERGER RATES: COMPARISON WITH LIGO/VIRGO UPPER LIMITS (2015, background): “Alternatively, the gap may be set by the very short time in the development of a supernova explosion in the neutrino supported convective engine model (Belczynski et al. 2012).”
PROGENITOR-EXPLOSION CONNECTION AND REMNANT BIRTH MASSES FOR NEUTRINO-DRIVEN SUPERNOVAE OF IRON-CORE PROGENITORS (2012, background): “This conflicts with the claim that neutrino-driven explosions should generally be launched soon after bounce in order to account for the observed gap between highest NS masses and smallest BH masses (Belczynski et al. 2011).”
X-RAY BINARY EVOLUTION ACROSS COSMIC TIME (2012, unknown): “The second update, based on the fully consistent supernova simulations, resulted in the revised neutron star and black hole mass spectrum (Belczynski et al. 2012; Fryer et al. 2012).”