What is the important source of uncertainty in mass loss?

At higher stellar masses the mass lossfrom luminous blue variables and WR stars also constitutes a major source of uncertainty, as do pulsationally induced and rotationally induced outflows (see above).

What is the fraction of neutron stars and black holes that form black holes at low metallicities?

If the mass limit at which weak supernovae occur decreases from 25 to 20 M , the fraction of neutron stars and typical Type IIp supernovae at low metallicities drops below 70%.

What is the current favored model for the formation of GRBs?

The currently favored model for the formation of GRBs assumes that a narrowly beamed ( d10 ), highly relativistic jet ( > 100) leaves a compact ‘‘ engine ’’ and produces gamma-rays by either internal shocks or running into some external medium (Frail et al. 2001).

Why does a larger helium core have a shallower density gradient?

Because of its higher entropy, a larger helium core also has, on the average, a larger iron core mass and a shallower density gradient around that core (Woosley et al. 2002).

What type of outbursts can make a GRB?

Although the authors have described them as GRB progenitors, collapsars probably produce a variety of outbursts, from X-ray flashes to jet-driven supernovae.

What is the common explanation for the pulsational instability of pairs?

These pulsations continue until the star has lost so much mass or decreased in central entropy that it no longer encounters the pair instability before forming an iron core in hydrostatic equilibrium.

What is the effect of rotation on the explosion mechanism?

If the core is rotating rapidly at collapse, rotation may also influence the explosion mechanism and especially the possibility of making a GRB.

What is the rate of mass loss for a star?

If the star loses its entire hydrogen envelope (to the right of the green line in Figs. 1–4), its rate of mass loss increases significantly (see, e.g., Langer 1989; Hamann, Koesterke, & Wessolowski 1995), producing much smaller helium cores at collapse.

What is the minimum metallicity for Type IIL/b supernovae?

A small hydrogen envelope (d2 M ) cannot sustain a long plateau phase in the light curve, and only Type IIL/b supernovae or, for very thin hydrogen layers, Type IIb supernovae result (Barbon, Ciatti, & Rosino 1979; Filippenko 1997).

What is the difference between the fraction of stars producing black holes and neutron stars?

As the metallicity increases, the fraction of stars producing black holes first increases slightly (as the pair-instabilitymechanism is shut off) and then decreases near solar metallicity as most massive stars lose so much mass that they collapse to form neutron stars instead of black holes.

Open AccessJournal Article10.1086/375341

How Massive Single Stars End Their Life

Alexander Heger, +5 more

- 01 Jul 2003

- The Astrophysical Journal

- Vol. 591, Iss: 1, pp 288-300

2.3K

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss how metallicity affects the evolution and final fate of massive stars, and derive the relative populations of stellar populations as a function of metallity.

Abstract: How massive stars die-what sort of explosion and remnant each produces-depends chiefly on the masses of their helium cores and hydrogen envelopes at death. For single stars, stellar winds are the only means of mass loss, and these are a function of the metallicity of the star. We discuss how metallicity, and a simplified prescription for its effect on mass loss, affects the evolution and final fate of massive stars. We map, as a function of mass and metallicity, where black holes and neutron stars are likely to form and where different types of supernovae are produced. Integrating over an initial mass function, we derive the relative populations as a function of metallicity. Provided that single stars rotate rapidly enough at death, we speculate on stellar populations that might produce gamma-ray bursts and jet-driven supernovae.

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Most frequently asked questions

1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "How massive single stars end their life" ?

The authors discuss how metallicity, and a simplified prescription for its effect on mass loss, affects the evolution and final fate of massive stars.

2. Why do some GRBs exist at low metallicities?

Because pulsational instabilities are able to eject the hydrogen envelope of stars even at zero metallicities, some GRBs could be formed at low metallicities.

3. What is the effect of rotation on the metallicity of supernovae?

The higher mass loss would tend to lower the metallicity for divisions between Type II and Type Ib/c supernovae as well as thedivisions between strong, weak, and no supernova explosions.

4. What is the role of the hydrogen envelope in the explosion mechanism?

While the helium core mass governs the explosion mechanism, the hydrogen envelope is largely responsible for determining the spectrum (at peak) and light curve of common Type II supernovae.

Fig. 6.—Fraction of massive stars that form supernovae for a Salpeter initial mass function (thick lines; Salpeter 1955). At low redshifts we use an alternate initial mass function (thin lines) fromNakamura &Umemura (2001). Most single stars become (a) Type II supernovae (solid line), and most of these are strong IIp SNe (dotted line). Roughly 15 % of Type II SNe are weak Type IIp supernovae (dot-dashed line). As the metallicity approaches solar, the fraction of weak supernovae decreases and a small fraction of Type IIL/b SNe are produced (dashed line). (b) Type Ib/c supernovae are not produced until the metallicity approaches solar (solid line), and most of these SNe will be weak (dot-dashed line). Not until the metallicity exceeds solar are strong Ib/c SNe produced (long-dashed line). Pair-instability supernovae (dashed line) and pulsational pair-instability supernovae (dotted line) are rare and only produced at low metallicities. Their fraction depends strongly on the unknown IMF at these low metallicities. Note that in the figure we multiply the pair-instability SNe fraction by a factor 10.

TABLE 4 Remnant and Supernova Population Yields for Different Metallicities, IMFs, and Mass Limits

Fig. 5.—Fraction of massive stars that form neutron stars (solid line) and black holes (dotted line) as a function of metallicity for a Salpeter initial mass function (thick lines; Salpeter 1955). The dashed lines denote just those black holes formed through fallback and the dot-dashed lines denote black holes formed from very massive (>300M ) stars. The thin lines arise from assuming the IMF at low metallicities is given by Nakamura & Umemura (2001) at low metallicity (see x 5). Note that at low metallicities, pair-instability supernovae leave no compact remnant whatsoever, so that in this regime the total of all fractions is less than 1.

Fig. 9.—Remnant masses of metal-free stars as a function of initial mass for stars from Woosley et al. (2002; WHW02, solid line) assuming a constant kinetic energy of the ejecta of 1:2 1051 ergs. The explosions were simulated by a piston at the edge of the deleptonized core similar to Woosley &Weaver (1995;WW95, crosses).

Fig. 3.—Collapsar types resulting from single massive stars as a function of initial metallicity and initial mass. Lines have the same meaning as in Fig. 1. Our main distinction is between collapsars that form from fallback (Type II; red ) and directly (Type I; pink). We subdivide these into those that have a hydrogen envelope (cross-hatching), only able to form jet-powered supernovae (JetSNe) and hydrogen-free collapsars (diagonal cross-hatching), possibly making either JetSNe or GRBs (see also Fig. 4). The first subclass is located below the thick green line of loss of the hydrogen envelope, and the second is above it. The light brown diagonal hatching at high mass and low metallicity indicates the regime of very massive black holes formed directly (Type III collapsars) that collapse on the pair-instability and photodisintegration. Since the collapsars scenario require the formation of a BH, at lowmass (left in the figure) or high metallicity (top of the figure) and in the strip of pair-instability supernovae (lower right) no collapsars occur (white).

Citations

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- 01 Apr 2005

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- 05 Nov 2004

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- arXiv: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

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References

Journal Article•10.1086/145971

The Luminosity function and stellar evolution

Edwin E. Salpeter

- 01 Jan 1955

- The Astrophysical Journal

TL;DR: In this paper, the evolutionary significance of the observed luminosity function for main-sequence stars in the solar neighborhood is discussed and it is shown that stars move off the main sequence after burning about 10 per cent of their hydrogen mass and that stars have been created at a uniform rate in a solar neighborhood for the last five billion years.

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•Journal Article•10.1086/192237

The Evolution and Explosion of Massive Stars. II. Explosive Hydrodynamics and Nucleosynthesis

S. E. Woosley, +1 more

- 30 Aug 1995

- Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

TL;DR: In this paper, the nucleosynthetic yield of isotopes lighter than A = 66 (zinc) is determined for a grid of stellar masses and metallicities including stars of 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 30, 35, and 40 M{sub {circle_dot}} and metals Z = 0, 10{sup {minus}4}, 0.01, 0.1, and 1 times solar (a slightly reduced mass grid is employed for non-solar metallicities).

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Journal Article•10.1086/172359

Gamma-ray bursts from stellar mass accretion disks around black holes

Stan Woosley

- 01 Mar 1993

- The Astrophysical Journal

TL;DR: In this paper, a cosmological model for gamma-ray bursts is explored in which the radiation is produced as a broadly beamed pair fireball along the rotation axis of an accreting black hole.

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Journal Article•10.1086/307790

Collapsars: Gamma-ray bursts and explosions in 'failed supernovae'

Andrew MacFadyen, +1 more

- 10 Oct 1999

- The Astrophysical Journal

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the continued evolution of rotating helium stars, Mα 10 M☉, in which iron-core collapse does not produce a successful outgoing shock but instead forms a black hole of 2-3 Mˉ.

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Journal Article•10.1103/REVMODPHYS.74.1015

The evolution and explosion of massive stars

S. E. Woosley, +2 more

- 07 Nov 2002

- Reviews of Modern Physics

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the current understanding of the lives and deaths of massive stars, with special attention to the relevant nuclear and stellar physics, and focused on their post-helium-burning evolution.

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2.4K

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How Massive Single Stars End Their Life

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AI Agents for this Paper

Most frequently asked questions

1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "How massive single stars end their life" ?

2. Why do some GRBs exist at low metallicities?

3. What is the effect of rotation on the metallicity of supernovae?

4. What is the role of the hydrogen envelope in the explosion mechanism?

5. What is the important source of uncertainty in mass loss?

6. What is the fraction of neutron stars and black holes that form black holes at low metallicities?

7. What is the current favored model for the formation of GRBs?

8. Why does a larger helium core have a shallower density gradient?

9. What type of outbursts can make a GRB?

10. What is the common explanation for the pulsational instability of pairs?

11. What is the effect of rotation on the explosion mechanism?

12. What is the rate of mass loss for a star?

13. What is the minimum metallicity for Type IIL/b supernovae?

14. What is the difference between the fraction of stars producing black holes and neutron stars?

Figures

Citations

Yellow supergiants as supernova progenitors: an indication of strong mass loss for red supergiants?

The Formation Of The First Stars In The Universe

Spin, Accretion and the Cosmological Growth of Supermassive Black Holes

SN 2006bp: Probing the Shock Breakout of a Type II-P Supernova

Evolution of massive population III stars with rotation and magnetic fields

References

The Luminosity function and stellar evolution

The Evolution and Explosion of Massive Stars. II. Explosive Hydrodynamics and Nucleosynthesis

Gamma-ray bursts from stellar mass accretion disks around black holes

Collapsars: Gamma-ray bursts and explosions in 'failed supernovae'

The evolution and explosion of massive stars

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