No Arabic abstract
Rotation in massive stars has been studied on the main sequence and during helium burning for decades, but only recently have realistic numerical simulations followed the transport of angular momentum that occurs during more advanced stages of evolution. The results affect such interesting issues as whether rotation is important to the explosion mechanism, whether supernovae are strong sources of gravitational radiation, the stars nucleosynthesis, and the initial rotation rate of neutron stars and black holes. We find that when only hydrodynamic instabilities (shear, Eddington-Sweet, etc.) are included in the calculation, one obtains neutron stars spinning at close to critical rotation at their surface -- or even formally in excess of critical. When recent estimates of magnetic torques (Spruit 2002) are added, however, the evolved cores spin about an order of magnitude slower. This is still more angular momentum than observed in young pulsars, but too slow for the collapsar model for gamma-ray bursts.
As a massive star evolves through multiple stages of nuclear burning on its way to becoming a supernova, a complex, differentially rotating structure is set up. Angular momentum is transported by a variety of classic instabilities, and also by magnetic torques from fields generated by the differential rotation. We present the first stellar evolution calculations to follow the evolution of rotating massive stars including, at least approximately, all these effects, magnetic and non-magnetic, from the zero-age main sequence until the onset of iron-core collapse. The evolution and action of the magnetic fields is as described by Spruit 2002 and a range of uncertain parameters is explored. In general, we find that magnetic torques decrease the final rotation rate of the collapsing iron core by about a factor of 30 to 50 when compared with the non-magnetic counterparts. Angular momentum in that part of the presupernova star destined to become a neutron star is an increasing function of main sequence mass. That is, pulsars derived from more massive stars will rotate faster and rotation will play a more dominant role in the stars explosion. The final angular momentum of the core is determined - to within a factor of two - by the time the star ignites carbon burning. For the lighter stars studied, around 15 solar masses, we predict pulsar periods at birth near 15 ms, though a factor of two range is easily tolerated by the uncertainties. Several mechanisms for additional braking in a young neutron star, especially by fall back, are also explored.
When a supernova explosion occurs in neighbors around hundreds pc, current and future neutrino detectors are expected to observe neutrinos from the presupernova star before the explosion. We show a possibility for obtaining the evidence for burning processes in the central region of presupernova stars though the observations of neutrino signals by current and future neutrino detectors such as KamLAND, JUNO, and Hyper-Kamiokande. We also investigate supernova alarms using neutrinos from presupernova stars in neighbors. If a supernova explodes at ~ 200 pc, future 20 kton size liquid scintillation detectors are expected to observe hundreds neutrino events. We also propose a possibility of the detection of neutrino events by Gd-loaded Hyper-Kamiokande using delayed $gamma$-ray signals. These detectors could observe detailed time variation of neutrino events. The neutrino emission rate increases by the core contraction in the final evolution stage. However, the O and Si shell burnings suppress the neutrino emission for a moment. The observed decrease in the neutrino event rate before hours to the explosion is possibly evidence for the shell burnings. The observations of detailed time evolution of presupernova neutrino events could reveal properties of burning processes in the central region of presupernova stars.
We present a dense model grid with tailored input chemical composition appropriate for the Large Magellanic Cloud. We use a one-dimensional hydrodynamic stellar evolution code, which accounts for rotation, transport of angular momentum by magnetic fields, and stellar wind mass loss to compute our detailed models. We calculate stellar evolution models with initial masses of 70-500 Msun and with initial surface rotational velocities of 0-550 km/s, covering the core-hydrogen burning phase of evolution. We find our rapid rotators to be strongly influenced by rotationally induced mixing of helium, with quasi-chemically homogeneous evolution occurring for the fastest rotating models. Above 160 Msun, homogeneous evolution is also established through mass loss, producing pure helium stars at core hydrogen exhaustion independent of the initial rotation rate. Surface nitrogen enrichment is also found for slower rotators, even for stars that lose only a small fraction of their initial mass. For models above 150 MZAMS, and for models in the whole considered mass range later on, we find a considerable envelope inflation due to the proximity of these models to their Eddington limit. This leads to a maximum zero-age main sequence surface temperature of 56000 K, at 180 Msun, and to an evolution of stars in the mass range 50-100 Msun to the regime of luminous blue variables in the HR diagram with high internal Eddington factors. Inflation also leads to decreasing surface temperatures during the chemically homogeneous evolution of stars above 180 Msun. The cool surface temperatures due to the envelope inflation in our models lead to an enhanced mass loss, which prevents stars at LMC metallicity from evolving into pair-instability supernovae. The corresponding spin-down will also prevent very massive LMC stars to produce long-duration gamma-ray bursts, which might, however, originate from lower masses.
We study the evolutionary and physical properties of evolved O stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), with a special focus on their surface abundances to investigate the efficiency of rotational mixing as a function of age, rotation and global metallicity. We analyse the UV + optical spectra of thirteen SMC O-type giants and supergiants, using the stellar atmosphere code CMFGEN to derive photospheric and wind properties. We compare the inferred properties to theoretical predictions from evolution models. For a more comprehensive analysis, we interpret the results together with those we obtained for O-type dwarfs in a former study. Most dwarfs lie in the early phases of the main-sequence. For a given initial mass, giants are farther along the evolutionary tracks, confirming that they are more evolved than dwarfs. Supergiants have higher initial masses and are located past the terminal age main-sequence. We find no clear trend of a mass discrepancy, regardless of the diagram that was used to estimate the evolutionary mass. CNO abundances are consistent with nucleosynthesis from the CNO cycle. Comparisons to theoretical predictions reveal that the initial mixture is important when the observed trends in the N/C versus N/O diagram are to be reproduced. A trend for stronger chemical evolution for more evolved objects is observed. More massive stars, are on average, more chemically enriched at a given evolutionary phase, qualitatively consistent with evolutionary models. Abundance ratios supports the theoretical prediction that massive stars at low metallicity are more chemically processed than their Galactic counterparts. Finally, models including rotation generally reproduce the surface abundances and rotation rates when different initial rotational velocities are considered. Nevertheless, there are objects for which a stronger braking and/or more efficient mixing is required.
We continue our studies on stellar latitudinal differential rotation. The presented work is a sequel of the work of Reiners et al. who studied the spectral line broadening profile of hundreds of stars of spectral types A through G at high rotational speed (vsini > 12 km/s). While most stars were found to be rigid rotators, only a few tens show the signatures of differential rotation. The present work comprises the rotational study of some 180 additional stars. The overall broadening profile is derived according to Reiners et al. from hundreds of spectral lines by least-squares deconvolution, reducing spectral noise to a minimum. Projected rotational velocities vsini are measured for about 120 of the sample stars. Differential rotation produces a cuspy line shape which is best measured in inverse wavelength space by the first two zeros of its Fourier transform. Rigid and differential rotation can be distinguished for more than 50 rapid rotators (vsini > 12 km/s) among the sample stars from the available spectra. Ten stars with significant differential rotation rates of 10-54 % are identified, which add to the few known rapid differential rotators. Differential rotation measurements of 6 % and less for four of our targets are probably spurious and below the detection limit. Including these objects, the line shapes of more than 40 stars are consistent with rigid rotation.