arXiv subjects

Evan P. O'Connor

Publications and source records attributed to Evan P. O'Connor.

28 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Determining the Structure of Rotating Massive Stellar Cores with Gravitational Waves

The gravitational wave (GW) signal resulting from stellar core collapse encodes a wealth of information about the physical parameters of the progenitor star and the resulting core-collapse supernova (CCSN). We present a novel approach to constrain CCSN progenitor properties at collapse using two of the most detectable parts of the GW signal: the core-bounce signal and evolution of the dominant frequency mode from the protoneutron star. We focus on the period after core bounce but before explosion and investigate the predictive power of GWs from rotating CCSNe to constrain properties of the progenitor star. We analyze 34 2D and four 3D neutrinoradiation-hydrodynamic simulations of stellar core collapse in progenitors of varied initial mass and rotation rate. Extending previous work, we verify the compactness of the progenitor at collapse to correlate with the early ramp-up slope, and in rotating cases, also with the core angular momentum. Combining this information with the bounce signal, we present a new analysis method to constrain the pre-collapse core compactness of the progenitor. Because these GW features occur less than a second after core bounce, this analysis could allow astronomers to predict electromagnetic properties of a resulting CCSN even before shock breakout.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Equation of State Dependence of Gravitational Waves in Core-Collapse Supernovae

Gravitational waves (GWs) provide unobscured insight into the birthplace of neutron stars (NSs) and black holes in core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). The nuclear equation of state (EOS) describing these dense environments is yet uncertain, and variations in its prescription affect the proto-neutron star (PNS) and the post-bounce dynamics in CCSNe simulations, subsequently impacting the GW emission. We perform axisymmetric simulations of CCSNe with Skyrme-type EOSs to study how the GW signal and PNS convection zone are impacted by two experimentally accessible EOS parameters, (1) the effective mass of nucleons, $m^\star$, which is crucial in setting the thermal dependence of the EOS, and (2) the isoscalar incompressibility modulus, $K_{\rm{sat}}$. While $K_{\rm{sat}}$ shows little impact, the peak frequency of the GWs has a strong effective mass dependence due to faster contraction of the PNS for higher values of $m^\star$ owing to a decreased thermal pressure. These more compact PNSs also exhibit more neutrino heating which drives earlier explosions and correlates with the GW amplitude via accretion plumes striking the PNS, exciting the oscillations. We investigate the spatial origin of the GWs and show the agreement between a frequency-radial distribution of the GW emission and a perturbation analysis. We do not rule out overshoot from below via PNS convection as another moderately strong excitation mechanism in our simulations. We also study the combined effect of effective mass and rotation. In all our simulations we find evidence for a power gap near $\sim$1250 Hz, we investigate its origin and report its EOS dependence.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Progenitor Dependence of Hadron-quark Phase Transition in Failing Core-collapse Supernovae

We study the consequences of a hadron-quark phase transition (PT) in failing core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) which give birth to stellar-mass black holes (BH). We perform a suite of neutrino-transport general-relativistic hydrodynamic simulations in spherical symmetry with 21 progenitor models and a hybrid equation of state (EoS) including hadrons and quarks. We find that the effect of the PT on the CCSN postbounce dynamics is a function of the bounce compactness parameter $ξ_{2.2}$. For $ξ_{2.2}\gtrsim0.24$, the PT leads to a second dynamical collapse of the protocompact star (PCS). While BH formation starts immediately after this second collapse for models with $ξ_{2.2}\gtrsim0.51$, the PCS experiences a second bounce and oscillations for models with $0.24\lesssimξ_{2.2}\lesssim0.51$. These models emit potent oscillatory neutrino signals with a period of $\sim$ms for tens of ms after the second bounce, which can be a strong indicator of the PT in failing CCSNe if detected in the future. However, no shock revival occurs and BH formation inevitably takes place in our spherically-symmetric simulations. Furthermore, via a diagram of mass-specific entropy evolution of the PCS, the progenitor dependence can be understood through the appearance of third-family of compact stars emerging at large entropy induced by the PT.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Constraining properties of the next nearby core-collapse supernova with multi-messenger signals

With the advent of modern neutrino and gravitational wave detectors, the promise of multi-messenger detections of the next galactic core-collapse supernova has become very real. Such detections will give insight into the core-collapse supernova mechanism, the structure of the progenitor star, and may resolve longstanding questions in fundamental physics. In order to properly interpret these detections, a thorough understanding of the landscape of possible core-collapse supernova events, and their multi-messenger signals, is needed. We present detailed predictions of neutrino and gravitational wave signals from 1D simulations of stellar core collapse, spanning the landscape of core-collapse progenitors from $9-120\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$. In order to achieve explosions in 1D, we use the STIR model, which includes the effects of turbulence and convection in 1D supernova simulations to mimic the 3D explosion mechanism. We study the gravitational wave emission from the 1D simulations using an astroseismology analysis of the proto-neutron star. We find that the neutrino and gravitational wave signals are strongly correlated with the structure of the progenitor star and remnant compact object. Using these correlations, future detections of the first few seconds of neutrino and gravitational wave emission from a galactic core-collapse supernova may be able to provide constraints on stellar evolution independent of pre-explosion imaging and the mass of the compact object remnant prior to fallback accretion.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

Simulating Turbulence-aided Neutrino-driven Core-collapse Supernova Explosions in One Dimension

The core-collapse supernova (CCSN) mechanism is fundamentally three-dimensional with instabilities, convection, and turbulence playing crucial roles in aiding neutrino-driven explosions. Simulations of CCNSe including accurate treatments of neutrino transport and sufficient resolution to capture key instabilities remain amongst the most expensive numerical simulations in astrophysics, prohibiting large parameter studies in 2D and 3D. Studies spanning a large swath of the incredibly varied initial conditions of CCSNe are possible in 1D, though such simulations must be artificially driven to explode. We present a new method for including the most important effects of convection and turbulence in 1D simulations of neutrino-driven CCSNe, called Supernova Turbulence In Reduced-dimensionality, or STIR. Our new approach includes crucial terms resulting from the turbulent and convective motions of the flow. We estimate the strength of convection and turbulence using a modified mixing length theory (MLT) approach introducing a few free parameters to the model which are fit to the results of 3D simulations. For sufficiently large values of the mixing length parameter, turbulence-aided neutrino-driven explosions are obtained. We compare the results of STIR to high-fidelity 3D simulations and perform a parameter study of CCSN explosion using 200 solar-metallicity progenitor models from 9 to 120 $M_\odot$. We find that STIR is a better predictor of which models will explode in multidimensional simulations than other methods of driving explosions in 1D. We also present a preliminary investigation of predicted observable characteristics of the CCSN population from STIR, such as the distributions of explosion energies and remnant masses.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

Features of Accretion-phase Gravitational-wave Emission from Two-dimensional Rotating Core-collapse Supernovae

We explore the influence of progenitor mass and rotation on the gravitational-wave (GW) emission from core-collapse supernovae, during the postbounce, preexplosion, accretion-phase. We present the results from 15 two-dimensional (2D) neutrino radiation-hydrodynamic simulations from initial stellar collapse to $\sim$300 ms after core bounce. We examine the features of the GW signals for four zero-age main sequence (ZAMS) progenitor masses ranging from 12 $M_\odot$ to 60 $M_\odot$ and four core rotation rates from 0 to 3 rad s$^{-1}$. We find that GW strain immediately around core bounce is fairly independent of ZAMS mass and---consistent with previous findings---that it is more heavily dependent on the core angular momentum. At later times, all nonrotating progenitors exhibit loud GW emission, which we attribute to vibrational g-modes of the protoneutron star (PNS) excited by convection in the postshock layer and the standing accretion shock instability (SASI). We find that increasing rotation rates results in muting of the accretion-phase GW signal due to centrifugal effects that inhibit convection in the postshock region, quench the SASI, and slow the rate at which the PNS peak vibrational frequency increases. Additionally, we verify the efficacy of our approximate general relativistic (GR) effective potential treatment of gravity by comparing our core bounce GW strains with the recent 2D GR results of other groups.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2018

The Impact of Different Neutrino Transport Methods on Multidimensional Core-collapse Supernova Simulations

Neutrinos play a crucial role in the core-collapse supernova (CCSN) explosion mechanism. The requirement of accurately calculating the transport of neutrinos makes simulations of the CCSN mechanism extremely challenging and computationally expensive. Historically, this stiff challenge has been met by making approximations to the full transport equation. In this work, we compare CCSN simulations in one- and two-dimensions with three approximate neutrino transport schemes, each implemented in the {\tt FLASH} simulation framework. We compare a two moment M1 scheme with an analytic closure (M1), the Isotropic Diffusion Source Approximation (IDSA), and the Advanced Spectral Leakage (ASL) method. We identify and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each scheme. For each approximate transport scheme, we use identical grid setups, hydrodynamics, and gravity solvers to investigate the transport effects on supernova shock dynamics and neutrino quantities. We find that the transport scheme has a small effect on the evolution of protoneutron star (PNS) radius, PNS mass, and the mass accretion rate. The neutrino luminosities, mean energies, and shock radii have a $\sim$ 10-20\% quantitative difference but the overall qualitative trends are fairly consistent between all three approximations. We find larger differences in the gain region properties, including the gain region mass and the net heating rate in the gain region, as well as the strength of PNS convection in the core. We investigate the progenitor, nuclear equation of state, and stochastic perturbation dependence of our simulations and find similar magnitudes of impact on key quantities. We also compare the computational expense of the various approximations.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2017

General Relativistic Three-Dimensional Multi-Group Neutrino Radiation-Hydrodynamics Simulations of Core-Collapse Supernovae

We report on a set of long-term general-relativistic three-dimensional (3D) multi-group (energy-dependent) neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics simulations of core-collapse supernovae. We employ a full 3D two-moment scheme with the local M1 closure, three neutrino species, and 12 energy groups per species. With this, we follow the post-core-bounce evolution of the core of a nonrotating $27$-$M_\odot$ progenitor in full unconstrained 3D and in octant symmetry for $\gtrsim$$ 380\,\mathrm{ms}$. We find the development of an asymmetric runaway explosion in our unconstrained simulation. We test the resolution dependence of our results and, in agreement with previous work, find that low resolution artificially aids explosion and leads to an earlier runaway expansion of the shock. At low resolution, the octant and full 3D dynamics are qualitatively very similar, but at high resolution, only the full 3D simulation exhibits the onset of explosion.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

High-Resolution Three-Dimensional Simulations of Core-Collapse Supernovae in Multiple Progenitors

Three-dimensional simulations of core-collapse supernovae are granting new insight into the as-yet uncertain mechanism that drives successful explosions. While there is still debate about whether explosions are obtained more easily in 3D than in 2D, it is undeniable that there exist qualitative and quantitative differences between the results of 3D and 2D simulations. We present an extensive set of high-resolution one-, two-, and three-dimensional core-collapse supernova simulations with multispecies neutrino leakage carried out in two different progenitors. Our simulations confirm the results of Couch (2013) indicating that 2D explodes more readily than 3D. We argue that this is due to the inadequacies of 2D to accurately capture important aspects of the three-dimensional dynamics. We find that without artificially enhancing the neutrino heating rate we do not obtain explosions in 3D. We examine the development of neutrino-driven convection and the standing accretion shock instability and find that, in separate regimes, either instability can dominate. We find evidence for growth of the standing accretion shock instability for both 15-$M_\odot$ and 27-$M_\odot$ progenitors, however, it is weaker in 3D exploding models. The growth rate of both instabilities is artificially enhanced along the symmetry axis in 2D as compared with our axis-free 3D Cartesian simulations. Our work highlights the growing consensus that core-collapse supernovae must be studied in 3D if we hope to solve the mystery of how the explosions are powered.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2012

The Role of Collective Neutrino Flavor Oscillations in Core-Collapse Supernova Shock Revival

We explore the effects of collective neutrino flavor oscillations due to neutrino-neutrino interactions on the neutrino heating behind a stalled core-collapse supernova shock. We carry out axisymmetric (2D) radiation-hydrodynamic core-collapse supernova simulations, tracking the first 400 ms of the post-core-bounce evolution in 11.2 solar mass and 15 solar mass progenitor stars. Using inputs from these 2D simulations, we perform neutrino flavor oscillation calculations in multi-energy single-angle and multi-angle single-energy approximations. Our results show that flavor conversions do not set in until close to or outside the stalled shock, enhancing heating by not more than a few percent in the most optimistic case. Consequently, we conclude that the postbounce pre-explosion dynamics of standard core-collapse supernovae remains unaffected by neutrino oscillations. Multi-angle effects in regions of high electron density can further inhibit collective oscillations, strengthening our conclusion.

astro-ph.SR↗