Evolution of rapidly rotating metal-poor massive stars towards gamma-ray bursts

By Sung-Chul Yoon, N. Langer. 2005

455 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent models of rotating massive stars including magnetic fields prove it difficult for the cores of single stars to retain enough angular momentum to produce a collapsar and gamma-ray burst. At low metallicity, even very massive stars may retain a massive hydrogen envelope due to the weakness of the stellar winds, posing an additional obstacle to the collapsar model. Here, we consider the evolution of massive, magnetic stars where rapid rotation induces almost chemically homogeneous evolution. We find that in this case, the requirements of the collapsar model are rather easily fulfilled if the metallicity is sufficiently small: 1) rapidly rotating helium stars are formed without the need to remove the hydrogen envelope, avoiding mass-loss induced spin-down. 2) Angular momentum transport from the helium core to hydrogen envelope by magnetic torques is insignificant. We demonstrate this by calculating evolutionary models of massive stars with various metallicities, and derive an upper metallicity limit for this scenario based on currently proposed mass loss rates. Our models also suggest the existence of a lower CO-core mass limit of about $10\,{M}_\odot$ – which relates to an initial mass of only about $20\,{M}_\odot$ within our scenario – for GRB production. We argue that the relative importance of the considered GRB progenitor channel, compared to any channel related to binary stars, may increase with decreasing metallicity, and that this channel might be the major path to GRBs from first stars.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e9d7f8631ca1e8227fa19f919bcc135e06bfeab9

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. N. Smith
2. N. Langer
3. S. Smartt
4. Selma de Mink
5. Stan Woosley
6. Michela Mapelli
7. Robert G. Izzard
8. C. Conroy

Citations in the corpus

• MESA ISOCHRONES AND STELLAR TRACKS (MIST). I. SOLAR-SCALED MODELS (2016, methodology): “…induced instabilities are treated in a diffusion approximation (Endal & Sofia 1978; Zahn 1983; Pinsonneault et al. 1989; Heger et al. 2000; Yoon & Langer 2005) in place of the alternative diffusion-advection approach (Maeder & Meynet 2000; Meynet & Maeder 2000; Eggenberger et al. 2008;…”
• Evolution towards the critical limit and the origin of Be stars (2007, background): “Also such mass loss may be important in the process leading to the formation of a collapsar which is the most favoured model for the progenitors of the long Gamma Ray Bursts (Woosley 1993; Yoon & Langer 2005; Woosley & Heger 2006; Meynet & Maeder 2007).”
• A POPULATION OF MASSIVE, LUMINOUS GALAXIES HOSTING HEAVILY DUST-OBSCURED GAMMA-RAY BURSTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE USE OF GRBs AS TRACERS OF COSMIC STAR FORMATION (2013, background): “…instance, the number of GRBs reported 15 Alternatively, some models enable the star to evolve homogeneously by continuously mixing the outer layers into the core, thereby converting the entire envelope to heavier elements over the course of its lifetime (Yoon & Langer 2005; Woosley & Heger 2006).”
• OPTICAL SPECTRA OF 73 STRIPPED-ENVELOPE CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE (2014, background): “The fundamental question remains, however, whether GRB-SNe Ic are a separate class of SNe Ic-bl requiring specific conditions (e.g., low metallicity; Yoon & Langer 2005; Woosley & Heger 2006; Stanek et al. 2006; Modjaz et al. 2008a) and/or constitute the extreme end of a continuum of SN Ic events,…”
• CONNECTING THE GAMMA RAY BURST RATE AND THE COSMIC STAR FORMATION HISTORY: IMPLICATIONS FOR REIONIZATION AND GALAXY EVOLUTION (2011, background): “The lower opacity and mass loss rates of low-metallicity stars eases this requirement and provides a credible rationale for preferring lowmetallicity GRB hosts (Hirschi et al. 2005; Yoon & Langer 2005; Woosley & Heger 2006).”
• Effects of rotation on the evolution of primordial stars (2008, background): “When the magnetic dynamo mechanism proposed by Spruit (1999, 2002) is taken into account, chemical mixing becomes more efficient and homogeneous evolution can be achieved with smaller initial rotation rates (Yoon & Langer 2005; Yoon et al. 2006; Woosley & Heger 2006).”
• PRE-SUPERNOVA EVOLUTION OF ROTATING SOLAR METALLICITY STARS IN THE MASS RANGE 13–120 M☉ AND THEIR EXPLOSIVE YIELDS (2012, unknown): “…and discussed by Meynet & Maeder (2000, 2003); Hirschi et al. (2004); Meynet & Maeder (2005); Decressin et al. (2007); Ekström et al. (2008); Ekström et al. (2012) and Heger et al. (2000); Heger & Langer (2000); Heger et al. (2005); Yoon & Langer (2005); Yoon et al. (2006); Brott et al. (2011).”
• The Zwicky Transient Facility Bright Transient Survey. II. A Public Statistical Sample for Exploring Supernova Demographics (2020, background): “Very low metallicities have been suggested to be conducive to powering enginepowered and other rare transients that require a hydrogen-poor progenitor without strong winds (e.g., Yoon & Langer 2005).”
• The Observer's Guide to the Gamma-Ray Burst-Supernova Connection (2016, background): “To date, the best theoretical stellar models find it hard to produce enough angular momentum in the core at the time of collapse to make a centrifugally supported disk, though some progress has been made [382, 383, 468].”
• SN 2006gy: Discovery of the Most Luminous Supernova Ever Recorded, Powered by the Death of an Extremely Massive Star like η Carinae (2006, background): “Different assumptions about the metallicity, mass-loss, and the presence of rotational mixingmay change things considerably (e.g.,Maeder 1987; Yoon & Langer 2005; Woosley & Heger 2006).”
• Pulsational Pair-instability Supernovae (2016, background): “1 of Yoon & Langer 2005), so this rate was multiplied by factors of 0.5 (Models CxxB), 0.25 (Models CxxC), and 0.1 (Models CxxD), with 0.5 and 0.25 perhaps being most appropriate, but 0.1 within the realm of possibility.”
• Merging binary black holes formed through chemically homogeneous evolution in short-period stellar binaries (2015, background): “Theoretical models indicate that this evolutionary pathway is favored at low metallicity (Yoon & Langer 2005; Yoon et al. 2006). de Mink et al. (2009) considered the possibility and implications of chemically homogeneous evolution in near contact binary systems.”
• The evolution of runaway stellar collision products (2009, background): “…collision product to high luminosities, exceeding the HumphreysDavidson limit, but the collision product never moves far from the extension of the ZAMS, instead evolving nearly vertically in the HR diagram (similar to the evolutionary tracks for homogeneously evolving stars, Yoon & Langer 2005).”
• Characterizing Supernova Progenitors via the Metallicities of their Host Galaxies, from Poor Dwarfs to Rich Spirals (2007, background): “For themostmassive stars, GRB progenitors in the collapsarmodel (e.g., MacFadyen & Woosley 1999; Yoon & Langer 2005), the interplay between metallicity-dependent mass loss through winds and rotation may be crucial (e.g., Hirschi et al. 2005).”
• MODULES FOR EXPERIMENTS IN STELLAR ASTROPHYSICS (MESA): PLANETS, OSCILLATIONS, ROTATION, AND MASSIVE STARS (2013, methodology): “We also directly compare runs from MESA star and STERN (Petrovic et al. 2005; Yoon & Langer 2005; Brott et al. 2011).”
• Binary star progenitors of long gamma-ray bursts (2007, background): “Yoon & Langer (2005), Yoon et al. (2006) and Woosley & Heger (2006) recently showed that below a certain metallicity threshold, very rapidly rotating single stars avoid the magnetic braking of the core through the so-called quasi-chemically homogeneous evolution: rotationally induced mixing…”