arXiv subjects

Kendall Shepherd

Publications and source records attributed to Kendall Shepherd.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The impact of stellar binaries and star cluster dynamics on pair-instability supernovae

Pair-instability supernovae (PISNe) are among the most luminous transients in the Universe. However, they have never been confidently observed. Solving this puzzle would have key implications for several astrophysical topics, including galaxy chemical enrichment, the interpretation of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers, and the nature of red dropout sources seen by JWST. With this aim, we present the first in-depth study of PISN occurrence in binary stars, both in isolation and in dense star clusters. We employ the SEVN code, with PARSEC stellar tracks, to evolve a suite of 35 synthetic binary populations, including variations on formation channels, cluster properties, and upper limit of the stellar initial mass function. We find that binary interactions can boost the PISN rate by up to threefold, relative to single stars, whereas binary hardening can either enhance or suppress PISN production, depending on whether the progenitors are primordial or dynamically formed. Moreover, we showcase how our comprehensive framework for the cosmic PISN rate can be used to constrain uncertain aspects of stellar and galaxy evolution models, via comparison with observations, including the recipes for stellar-wind mass loss in very-massive stars, and the galaxy metallicity distribution throughout the Universe.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

The impact of envelope binding energies on the merger rate density of binary compact objects

The common envelope (CE) phase plays a key role in the formation of binary compact object systems. Its final outcome strongly depends on the envelope binding energy, but this quantity is often estimated using fitting formulas that are not fully consistent with the underlying stellar evolution models adopted in population-synthesis codes. Here, we investigate envelope binding energies across the most extensive stellar grid considered to date. Our stellar tracks, evolved with PARSEC v2.0, include hydrogen (H) -rich stars with metallicities ranging from $Z = 10^{-11}$ (Population III stars) to $Z = 0.03$, and initial masses between 2 and 2000 M$_\odot$, as well as pure-helium stars with masses from 0.36 to 350 M$_\odot$. We examine the sensitivity of the envelope binding energies to the selected core-envelope boundary definition and to different internal energy source contributions. For H-rich stars, we find that internal energy sources can alter the envelope binding energy by more than an order of magnitude, whereas the core boundary criteria play a secondary role. In contrast, for pure helium stars, the core-boundary criterion becomes the dominant factor. The envelope binding energies derived from different stellar tracks can show deviations of several orders of magnitude, with larger differences for more massive stars and higher metallicities.Finally, by implementing our new envelope binding energy prescriptions into the binary population synthesis code SEVN, we show that the predicted merger rate densities of compact binaries can differ by more than an order of magnitude compared to previous models. Our results highlight the importance of using envelope binding energies that are consistent with the underlying stellar evolution models and caution against extrapolating empirical fits beyond the considered parameter space.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2025

Impact of initial mass function on the chemical evolution of high-redshift galaxies

Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have found evidence for an invariant relation between stellar mass, metallicity, and star formation rate up to $z\sim 8$ and its breakdown at higher redshifts. Understanding the underlying physics driving such correlations is thus crucial. Here, we explore the impact of the initial mass function (IMF) on the chemical evolution of high-redshift galaxies. Indeed, star formation and metal enrichment in galaxies are regulated by supernova (SN) explosions and metal yields from massive stars, which are sensitive to the high-mass end of the IMF. Using the semi-analytical galaxy evolution code \textsc{a-sloth}, we follow galactic baryon cycles along merger trees built from a high-resolution cosmological simulation. Stellar feedback is modeled with up-to-date stellar evolution tracks covering the full metallicity range ($Z \sim 10^{-11} - 0.03$) and a broad stellar mass range ($m_\star\sim2 - 600\ \rm M_\odot$), including metal yields from stellar winds, core-collapse SNe, (pulsational) pair-instability SNe, and Type Ia SNe. Assuming a Kroupa-like IMF with a varying upper mass limit $m_{\max}$, we find that only models with $m_{\max} \gtrsim 200\ \rm M_\odot$ can simultaneously reproduce the observed mass-metallicity-star formation rate relation and cosmic star formation history at $z\gtrsim 4$ owing to enhanced metal yields from pair-instability SNe. Our results confirm that very massive ($\gtrsim 200\ \rm M_\odot$) stars and pair-instability SNe play an important role in the star formation and chemical enrichment histories of high-$z$ galaxies. They also have profound implications for electromagnetic transients and gravitational-wave events.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

A new prescription for the spectral properties of population III stellar populations

We investigated various emission properties of extremely low metallicity stellar populations in the Epoch of Reionization (EoR), using the new GALSEVN model, which has shown promising agreement between spectral predictions and observations at lower redshifts and higher metallicities. We find that emission-line diagnostics previously proposed to discriminate between population III (Pop III) stars and other primordial ionizing sources are effective, but only for stellar-population ages below $\sim1$ Myr. We provide other key quantities relevant to modeling Pop III stellar populations in the EoR, such as the production efficiency of ionizing photons, which is critical for reionization studies, the production rate of Lyman-Werner photons, which can dissociate H$_2$ and influence the efficiency of star formation, and the rates of different types of supernov\ae, offering insights into the timescales of chemical enrichment in metal-poor environments. We complement our study with a self-consistent investigation of the gravitational-wave signals generated by the mergers of binary black holes that formed through stellar evolution and their detectability. The results presented here provide valuable predictions for the study of the EoR, on the crucial role of low-metallicity stellar populations in reionization mechanisms and star formation, as well as meaningful insights into potential observational counterparts to direct detections of Pop III stars.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

The cosmic rate of Pair-Instability Supernovae

Pair-instability supernovae (PISNe) have crucial implications for many astrophysical topics, including the search for very massive stars, the black hole mass spectrum, and galaxy chemical enrichment. To this end, we need to understand where PISNe are across cosmic time, and what are their favourable galactic environments. We present a new determination of the PISN rate as a function of redshift, obtained by combining up-to-date stellar evolution tracks from the PARSEC and FRANEC codes, with an up-to-date semi-empirical determination of the star formation rate and metallicity evolution of star-forming galaxies throughout cosmic history. We find the PISN rate to exhibit a huge dependence on the model assumptions, including the criterion to identify stars unstable to pair production, and the upper limit of the stellar initial mass function. Remarkably, the interplay between the maximum metallicity at which stars explode as PISNe, and the dispersion of the galaxy metallicity distribution, dominates the uncertainties, causing a $\sim$ seven-orders-of-magnitude PISN rate range. Furthermore, we show a comparison with the core-collapse supernova rate, and study the properties of the favourable PISN host galaxies. According to our results, the main contribution to the PISN rate comes from metallicities between $\sim 10^{-3}$ and $10^{-2}$, against the common assumption that views very-low-metallicity, Population III stars as exclusive or dominant PISN progenitors. The strong dependencies we find offer the opportunity to constrain stellar and galaxy evolution models based on possible future (or the lack of) PISN observations.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

The Impact of the Third Dredge-up and Mass Loss in Shaping the Initial-Final Mass Relation of White Dwarfs

The initial-final mass relation (IFMR) plays a crucial role in understanding stellar structure and evolution by linking a star's initial mass to the mass of the resulting white dwarf. This study explores the IFMR in the initial mass range $0.8 \leq M_\mathrm{ini} / M_\odot \leq 4$ using full PARSEC evolutionary calculations supplemented with COLIBRI computations to complete the ejection of the envelope and obtain the final core mass. Recent works have shown that the supposed monotonicity of the IFMR is interrupted by a kink in the initial mass range $M_\mathrm{ini} \approx 1.65-2.10 M_\odot$, due to the interaction between recurrent dredge-up episodes and stellar winds in carbon stars evolving on the thermally-pulsing asymptotic giant branch phase. To reproduce the IFMR non-monotonic behavior we investigate the role of convective overshooting efficiency applied to the base of the convective envelope ($f_\mathrm{env}$) and to the borders of the pulse-driven convective zone ($f_\mathrm{pdcz}$), as well as its interplay with mass loss. We compare our models to observational data and find that $f_\mathrm{env}$ must vary with initial mass in order to accurately reproduce the IFMR's observed kink and slopes. We find some degeneracy between the overshooting parameters when only the IFMR information is used. Nonetheless, this analysis provides valuable insights into the internal mixing processes during the TP-AGB phase.

astro-ph.SR↗