No Arabic abstract
We study the populations of massive stars in the Carina region and their energetic feedback and ejection of $^{26}$Al. We did a census of the stellar populations in young stellar clusters within a few degrees of the Carina Nebula. For each star we estimated the mass, based on the spectral type and the host cluster age. We used population synthesis to calculate the energetic feedback and ejection of $^{26}$Al from the winds of the massive stars and their supernova explosions. We used 7 years of INTEGRAL observations to measure the $^{26}$Al signal from the region. The INTEGRAL $^{26}$Al signal is not significant with a best-fit value of about 1.5e-5 ph/cm^2/s, approximately half of the published Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) result, but in agreement with the latest CGRO estimates. Our analysis of the stellar populations in the young clusters leads to an expected signal of half the observed value, but the results are consistent within 2 sigma. We find that the fraction of $^{26}$Al ejected in Wolf-Rayet winds is high, and the observed signal is unlikely to be caused by $^{26}$Al ejected in supernovae alone, indicating a strong wind ejection of $^{26}$Al. Due to the lack of prominent O stars, regions with ages $gtrsim$10 Myr are often neglected in studies of OB associations. We find that in the Carina region such clusters contribute significantly to the stellar mass and the energetics of the region.
We simulate the effects of massive star feedback, via winds and SNe, on inhomogeneous molecular material left over from the formation of a massive stellar cluster. We use 3D hydrodynamic models with a temperature dependent average particle mass to model the separate molecular, atomic, and ionized phases. We find that the winds blow out of the molecular clump along low-density channels, and gradually ablate denser material into these. However, the dense molecular gas is surprisingly long-lived and is not immediately affected by the first star in the cluster exploding.
Star clusters appear to be the ideal environment for the assembly of neutron star-neutron star (NS-NS) and black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) binaries. These binaries are among the most interesting astrophysical objects, being potential sources of gravitational waves (GWs) and gamma-ray bursts. We use for the first time high-precision N-body simulations of young massive and open clusters to study the origin and dynamical evolution of NSs, within clusters with different initial masses, metallicities, primordial binary fractions, and prescriptions for the compact object natal kicks at birth. We find that the radial profile of NSs is shaped by the BH content of the cluster, which partially quenches the NS segregation due to the BH-burning process. This leaves most of the NSs out of the densest cluster regions, where NS-NS and BH-NS binaries could potentially form. Due to a large velocity kick that they receive at birth, most of the NSs escape the host clusters, with the bulk of their retained population made up of NSs of $sim 1.3$ M$_odot$ coming from the electron-capture supernova process. The details of the primordial binary fraction and pairing can smear out this trend. Finally, we find that a subset of our models produce NS-NS mergers, leading to a rate of $sim 0.01$--$0.1$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$ in the local Universe, and compute an upper limit of $sim 3times 10^{-2}$--$3times 10^{-3}$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$ for the BH-NS merger rate. Our estimates are several orders of magnitude smaller than the current empirical merger rate from LIGO/Virgo, in agreement with the recent rate estimates for old globular clusters.
Almost since the beginning, massive stars and their resultant supernovae have played a crucial role in the Universe. These objects produce tremendous amounts of energy and new, heavy elements that enrich galaxies, encourage new stars to form and sculpt the shapes of galaxies we see today. The end of millions of years of massive star evolution and the beginning of hundreds or thousands of years of supernova evolution are separated by a matter of a few seconds, in which some of the most extreme physics found in the Universe causes the explosive and terminal disruption of the star. Key questions remain unanswered in both the studies of how massive stars evolve and the behaviour of supernovae, and it appears the solutions may not lie on just one side of the explosion or the other or in just the domain of the stellar evolution or the supernova astrophysics communities. The need to view massive star evolution and supernovae as continuous phases in a single narrative motivated the Theo Murphy international scientific meeting Bridging the gap: from massive stars to supernovae at Chicheley Hall in June 2016, with the specific purpose to simultaneously address the scientific connections between theoretical and observational studies of massive stars and their supernovae, through engaging astronomers from both communities.
Because core-collapse supernovae are the explosions of massive stars, which have relatively short lifetimes, they occur almost exclusively in galaxies with active star formation. On the other hand, the Type Ibn supernova PS1-12sk exploded in an environment much more typical of thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae: on the outskirts of the brightest elliptical galaxy in a galaxy cluster. The lack of any obvious star formation at that location presented a challenge to models of Type Ibn supernovae as the explosions of very massive Wolf-Rayet stars. Here we present a supplementary search for star formation at the site of PS1-12sk, now that the supernova has faded, via deep ultraviolet imaging of the host cluster with the Hubble Space Telescope. We do not detect any ultraviolet emission within 1 kpc of the supernova location, which allows us deepen the limit on star formation rate by an order of magnitude compared to the original study on this event. In light of this new limit, we discuss whether the progenitors of Type Ibn supernovae can be massive stars and what reasonable alternatives have been proposed.
The new results of our observing campaign targeting the isolated neutron star 2XMM J104608.7-594306 in the Carina Nebula are used to understand how peculiar groups of isolated neutron stars relate to each other, as well as to the bulk of the normal radio pulsar population.