arXiv subjects

James Guillochon

Publications and source records attributed to James Guillochon.

65 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Conditions For Successful Helium Detonations In Astrophysical Environments

Several models for type Ia-like supernovae events rely on the production of a self-sustained detonation powered by nuclear reactions. In the absence of hydrogen, the fuel that powers these detonations typically consists of either pure helium (He) or a mixture of carbon and oxygen (C/O). Studies that systematically determine the conditions required to initiate detonations in C/O material exist, but until now no analogous investigation of He matter has been conducted. We perform one-dimensional reactive hydrodynamical simulations at a variety of initial density and temperature combinations and find critical length scales for the initiation of He detonations that range between 1 - $10^{10}$ cm. A simple estimate of the length scales over which the total consumption of fuel will occur for steady-state detonations is provided by the Chapman-Jouguet (CJ) formalism. Our initiation lengths are consistently smaller than the corresponding CJ length scales by a factor of $\Sim 100$, providing opportunities for thermonuclear explosions in a wider range of low-mass white dwarfs (WDs) than previously thought possible. We find that virialized WDs with as little mass as 0.24 $M_\odot$ can be detonated, and that even less massive WDs can be detonated if a sizable fraction of their mass is raised to a higher adiabat. That the initiation length is exceeded by the CJ length implies that certain systems may not reach nuclear statistical equilibrium within the time it takes a detonation to traverse the object. In support of this hypothesis, we demonstrate that incomplete burning will occur in the majority of He WD detonations and that $^{40}$Ca, $^{44}$Ti, or $^{48}$Cr, rather than $^{56}$Ni, is the predominant burning product for many of these events. We anticipate that ...

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Circumstellar absorption in double detonation Type Ia supernovae

Upon formation, degenerate He core white dwarfs are surrounded by a radiative H-rich layer primarily supported by ideal gas pressure. In this Letter, we examine the effect of this H-rich layer on mass transfer in He+C/O double white dwarf binaries that will eventually merge and possibly yield a Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) in the double detonation scenario. Because its thermal profile and equation of state differ from the underlying He core, the H-rich layer is transferred stably onto the C/O white dwarf prior to the He core's tidal disruption. We find that this material is ejected from the binary system and sweeps up the surrounding interstellar medium hundreds to thousands of years before the SN Ia. The close match between the resulting circumstellar medium profiles and values inferred from recent observations of circumstellar absorption in SNe Ia gives further credence to the resurgent double detonation scenario.

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arXiv2012

On the Survivability and Metamorphism of Tidally Disrupted Giant Planets: the Role of Dense Cores

A large population of planetary candidates in short-period orbits have been found through transit searches. Radial velocity surveys have also revealed several Jupiter-mass planets with highly eccentric orbits. Measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect indicate some misaligned planetary systems. This diversity could be induced by post-formation dynamical processes such as planet-planet scattering, the Kozai effect, or secular chaos which brings planets to the vicinity of their host stars. In this work, we propose a novel mechanism to form close-in super-Earths and Neptune-like planets through the tidal disruption of giant planets as a consequence of these dynamical processes. We model the core-envelope structure of giant planets with composite polytropes. Using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of close encounters between planets and their host stars, we find that the presence of a core with a mass more than ten Earth masses can significantly increase the fraction of envelope which remains bound to it. After the encounter, planets with cores are more likely to be retained by their host stars in contrast with previous studies which suggested that coreless planets are often ejected. As a substantial fraction of their gaseous envelopes is preferentially lost while the dense incompressible cores retain most of their original mass, the resulting metallicity of the surviving planets is increased. Our results suggest that some gas giant planets can be effectively transformed into either super-Earths or Neptune-like planets after multiple close stellar passages. Finally, we analyze the orbits and structure of known planets and Kepler candidates and find that our model is capable producing some of the shortest-period objects.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2012

The Tidal Disruption of Giant Stars and Their Contribution to the Flaring Supermassive Black Hole Population

Sun-like stars are thought to be regularly disrupted by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) within galactic nuclei. Yet, as stars evolve off the main sequence their vulnerability to tidal disruption increases drastically as they develop a bifurcated structure consisting of a dense core and a tenuous envelope. Here we present the first hydrodynamic simulations of the tidal disruption of giant stars and show that the core has a substantial influence on the star's ability to survive the encounter. Stars with more massive cores retain large fractions of their envelope mass, even in deep encounters. Accretion flares resulting from the disruption of giant stars should last for tens to hundreds of years. Their characteristic signature in transient searches would not be the $t^{-5/3}$ decay typically associated with tidal disruption events, but a correlated rise over many orders of magnitude in brightness on months to years timescales. We calculate the relative disruption rates of stars of varying evolutionary stages in typical galactic centers, then use our results to produce Monte Carlo realizations of the expected flaring event populations. We find that the demographics of tidal disruption flares are strongly dependent on both stellar and black hole mass, especially near the limiting SMBH mass scale of $\sim 10^8 M_\odot$. At this black hole mass, we predict a sharp transition in the SMBH flaring diet beyond which all observable disruptions arise from evolved stars, accompanied by a dramatic cutoff in the overall tidal disruption flaring rate. Black holes less massive than this limiting mass scale will show observable flares from both main sequence and evolved stars, with giants contributing up to 10% of the event rate. The relative fractions of stars disrupted at different evolutionary states can constrain the properties and distributions of stars in galactic nuclei other than our own.

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arXiv2012

The dynamics, appearance and demographics of relativistic jets triggered by tidal disruption of stars in quiescent supermassive black holes

We examine the consequences of a model in which relativistic jets can be triggered in quiescent massive black holes when a geometrically thick and hot accretion disk forms as a result of the tidal disruption of a star. To estimate the power, thrust and lifetime of the jet, we use the mass accretion history onto the black hole as calculated by detailed hydrodynamic simulations of the tidal disruption of stars. We go on to determine the states of the interstellar medium in various types of quiescent galactic nuclei, and describe how this external matter can affect jets propagating through it. We use this information, together with a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model of the structure of the relativistic flow, to study the dynamics of the jet, the propagation of which is regulated by the density stratification of the environment and by its injection history. The breaking of symmetry involved in transitioning from one to two dimensions is crucial and leads to qualitatively new phenomena. Many of the observed properties of the Swift 1644+57/GRB 110328A event can be understood as resulting from accretion onto and jets driven by a $10^6 M_\odot$ central mass black hole following the disruption of sun-like star. With the inclusion of a stochastic contribution to the luminosity due to variations in the feeding rate driven by instabilities near the tidal radius, we find that our model can explain the X-ray light curve without invoking a rarely-occurring deep encounter. In conjunction with the number density of black holes in the local universe, we hypothesize that the conditions required to produce the Swift event are not anomalous, but are in fact representative of the jet-driven flare population arising from tidal disruptions. [abridged]

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arXiv2012

How the merger of two white dwarfs depends on their mass ratio: orbital stability and detonations at contact

Despite their unique astrophysical relevance, the outcome of white dwarf binary mergers has so far only been studied for a very restricted number of systems. Here we present the results of a survey with more than two hundred simulations systematically scanning the white dwarf binary parameter space. We consider white dwarf masses ranging from 0.2 to 1.2 $M_\odot$ and account for their different chemical compositions. We find excellent agreement with the orbital evolution predicted by mass transfer stability analysis. Much of our effort in this paper is dedicated to determining which binary systems are prone to a thermonuclear explosion just prior to merger or at surface contact. We find that a large fraction of He-accreting binary systems explode: all dynamically unstable systems with accretor masses below 1.1 $M_\odot$ and donor masses above $\sim$ 0.4 $M_\odot$ are found to trigger a helium detonation at surface contact. A substantial fraction of these systems could explode at earlier times via detonations induced by instabilities in the accretion stream, as we have demonstrated in our previous work. We do not find definitive evidence for an explosion prior to merger or at surface contact in any of the studied double carbon-oxygen systems. Although we cannot exclude their occurrence if some helium is present, the available parameter space for a successful detonation in a white dwarf binary of pure carbon-oxygen composition is small. We demonstrate that a wide variety of dynamically unstable systems are viable type Ia candidates. The next decade thus holds enormous promise for the study of these events, in particular with the advent of wide-field synoptic surveys allowing a detailed characterization of their explosive properties.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2011

A relativistic jetted outburst from a massive black hole fed by a tidally disrupted star

While gas accretion onto some massive black holes (MBHs) at the centers of galaxies actively powers luminous emission, the vast majority of MBHs are considered dormant. Occasionally, a star passing too near a MBH is torn apart by gravitational forces, leading to a bright panchromatic tidal disruption flare (TDF). While the high-energy transient Swift J164449.3+573451 ("Sw 1644+57") initially displayed none of the theoretically anticipated (nor previously observed) TDF characteristics, we show that the observations (Levan et al. 2011) suggest a sudden accretion event onto a central MBH of mass ~10^6-10^7 solar masses. We find evidence for a mildly relativistic outflow, jet collimation, and a spectrum characterized by synchrotron and inverse Compton processes; this leads to a natural analogy of Sw 1644+57 with a smaller-scale blazar. The phenomenologically novel Sw 1644+57 thus connects the study of TDFs and active galaxies, opening a new vista on disk-jet interactions in BHs and magnetic field generation and transport in accretion systems.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2011

Prelude to a double degenerate merger: the onset of mass transfer and its impact on gravitational waves and surface detonations

We present the results of a systematic numerical study of the onset of mass transfer in double degenerate binary systems and its impact on the subsequent evolution. All investigated systems belong to the regime of direct impact, unstable mass transfer. In all of the investigated cases, even those considered unstable by conventional stability analysis, we find a long-lived mass transfer phase continuing for as many as several dozen orbital periods. This settles a recent debate sparked by a discrepancy between earlier SPH calculations that showed disruptions after a few orbital periods and newer grid-based studies in which mass transfer continued for tens of orbits. As we show that these binaries can survive at small separation for hundreds of orbital periods, their associated gravitational wave signal should be included when calculating the gravitational wave foreground (although expected to below LISA's sensitivity at these high frequencies). We also show that the inclusion of the entropy increase associated with shock-heating of the accreted material reduces the number of orbits a binary survives given the same initial conditions, although the effect is not as pronounced when using the appropriate initial conditions. The use of accurate initial conditions and a correct treatment of shock heating allows for a reliable time evolution of the temperature, density, and angular momentum, which are important when considering thermonuclear events that may occur during the mass transfer phase and/or after merger. Our treatment allows us to accurately identify when surface detonations may occur in the lead-up to the merger, as well as the properties of final merger products.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2010

Consequences of the Ejection and Disruption of Giant Planets

The discovery of Jupiter-mass planets in close orbits about their parent stars has challenged models of planet formation. Recent observations have shown that a number of these planets have highly inclined, sometimes retrograde orbits about their parent stars, prompting much speculation as to their origin. It is known that migration alone cannot account for the observed population of these misaligned hot Jupiters, which suggests that dynamical processes after the gas disc dissipates play a substantial role in yielding the observed inclination and eccentricity distributions. One particularly promising candidate is planet-planet scattering, which is not very well understood in the non-linear regime of tides. Through three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of multi-orbit encounters, we show that planets that are scattered into an orbit about their parent stars with closest approach distance being less than approximately three times the tidal radius are either destroyed or completely ejected from the system. We find that as few as 5 and as many as 18 of the currently known hot Jupiters have a maximum initial apastron for scattering that lies well within the ice line, implying that these planets must have migrated either before or after the scattering event that brought them to their current positions. If stellar tides are unimportant $(Q_\ast \gtrsim 10^7)$, disk migration is required to explain the existence of the hot Jupiters present in these systems. Additionally, we find that the disruption and/or ejection of Jupiter-mass planets deposits a Sun's worth of angular momentum onto the host star. For systems in which planet-planet scattering is common, we predict that planetary hosts have up to a 35% chance of possessing an obliquity relative to the invariable plane of greater than 90 degrees.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2009

Surface Detonations in Double Degenerate Binary Systems Triggered by Accretion Stream Instabilities

We present three-dimensional simulations on a new mechanism for the detonation of a sub-Chandrasekhar CO white dwarf in a dynamically unstable system where the secondary is either a pure He white dwarf or a He/CO hybrid. For dynamically unstable systems where the accretion stream directly impacts the surface of the primary, the final tens of orbits can have mass accretion rates that range from $10^{-5}$ to $10^{-3} M_{\odot}$ s$^{-1}$, leading to the rapid accumulation of helium on the surface of the primary. After $\sim 10^{-2}$ $M_{\odot}$ of helium has been accreted, the ram pressure of the hot helium torus can deflect the accretion stream such that the stream no longer directly impacts the surface. The velocity difference between the stream and the torus produces shearing which seeds large-scale Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities along the interface between the two regions. These instabilities eventually grow into dense knots of material that periodically strike the surface of the primary, adiabatically compressing the underlying helium torus. If the temperature of the compressed material is raised above a critical temperature, the timescale for triple-$α$ reactions becomes comparable to the dynamical timescale, leading to the detonation of the primary's helium envelope. This detonation drives shockwaves into the primary which tend to concentrate at one or more focal points within the primary's CO core. If a relatively small amount of mass is raised above a critical temperature and density at these focal points, the CO core may itself be detonated.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2009

Three-Dimensional Simulations of Tidally Disrupted Solar-Type Stars and the Observational Signatures of Shock Breakout

We describe a three-dimensional simulation of a $1 M_{\odot}$ solar-type star approaching a $10^{6} M_{\odot}$ black hole on a parabolic orbit with a pericenter distance well within the tidal radius. While falling towards the black hole, the star is not only stretched along the orbital direction but even more severely compressed at right angles to the orbit. The overbearing degree of compression achieved shortly after pericenter leads to the production of strong shocks which largely homogenize the temperature profile of the star, resulting in surface temperatures comparable to the initial temperature of the star's core. This phenomenon, which precedes the fallback accretion phase, gives rise to a unique double-peaked X-ray signature that, if detected, may be one of the few observable diagnostics of how stars behave under the influence of strong gravitational fields. If $\sim 10^{6} M_{\odot}$ black holes were prevalent in small or even dwarf galaxies, the nearest of such flares may be detectable by EXIST from no further away than the Virgo Cluster.

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