How much Ni-56 can be produced in Core-Collapse Supernovae? Evolution and Explosions of 30-100 Msun Stars
Jul, 2007Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
Motivated by the discovery of extremely bright supernovae SNe1999as and 2006gy, we have investigated how much 56Ni mass can be synthesized in core-collapse massive supernovae (SNe). We calculate the evolution of several very massive stars with initial masses M <~ 100Msun from the main-sequence to the beginning of the Fe-core collapse and simulate their explosions and nucleosynthesis. In order to avoid complications associated with strong mass-loss, we only consider metal-poor stars with initial metallicity Z= Zsun/200. However, our results are applicable to higher metallicity models with similar C+O core masses. We find that the synthesized 56Ni mass increases with the increasing explosion energy and progenitor mass. For the explosion energy of E_51 = E/10^51 erg =30, for example, the 56Ni masses of M(56Ni) = 2.2, 2.3, 5.0, and 6.6 Msun can be produced for the progenitors with initial masses of 30, 50, 80 and 100 Msun (or C+O core masses M(CO) = 11.4, 19.3, 34.0 and 42.6 Msun), respectively. We find that producing M(56Ni) ~ 4Msun as seen in SN1999as is possible for M(CO) >~ 34Msun and E_51 >~ 20. Producing M(56Ni) ~ 13Msun as suggested for SN2006gy requires a too large explosion energy for M(CO) < ~ 43Msun, but it may be possible with a reasonable explosion energy if M(CO) >~ 60Msun.References(35)
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