Pre-supernova evolution and final fate of stellar mergers and accretors of binary mass transfer

Abstract

The majority of massive stars are expected to exchange mass or merge with a companion during their lives. This immediately implies that most supernovae (SNe) are from such post-mass-exchange objects. Here, we explore how mass accretion and merging affect the pre-SN structures of stars and their final fates. We use the stellar evolution code MESA, infer the outcome of core-collapse using a neutrino-driven SN model, and apply a rapid-accretion model. Our models cover initial masses from 11 to 70 Msun and the accreted mass ranges from 10-200% of the initial mass. We find that mass accretion in particular onto post-main-sequence (post-MS) stars can lead to a long-lived blue supergiant (BSG) phase. In comparison to genuine single stars, post-MS accretors have small core-to-total mass ratios, regardless of whether they end their lives as BSGs or cool supergiants (CSGs), and they can have genuinely different pre-SN core structures. As in single and binary-stripped stars, we find black-hole (BH) formation for the same characteristic CO core masses M_CO of ~7 Msun and >13 Msun. In models with the largest mass accretion, the BH-formation landscape as a function of M_CO is shifted by about 0.5 Msun to lower masses. We find a tight relation between our neutron-star (NS) masses and the central entropy of the pre-SN models, suggesting a universal relation that is independent of the evolutionary history of stars. Post-MS accretors explode both as BSGs and CSGs, and we show how to understand their pre-SN locations in the Hertzsprung--Russell diagram. Some BSGs that avoid the luminous-blue-variable (LBV) regime are predicted to collapse into BHs of up to 50 Msun while others explode in supernovae and eject up to 40 Msun, greatly exceeding ejecta masses from single stars. These masses can be even higher at lower metallicities, and they may fall into the pair-instability-supernova mass gap. [abridged]