scholarly journals Angular momentum transport in massive stars and natal neutron star rotation rates

2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (3) ◽  
pp. 4338-4355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linhao Ma ◽  
Jim Fuller

Abstract The internal rotational dynamics of massive stars are poorly understood. If angular momentum (AM) transport between the core and the envelope is inefficient, the large core AM upon core-collapse will produce rapidly rotating neutron stars (NSs). However, observations of low-mass stars suggest an efficient AM transport mechanism is at work, which could drastically reduce NS spin rates. Here, we study the effects of the baroclinic instability and the magnetic Tayler instability in differentially rotating radiative zones. Although the baroclinic instability may occur, the Tayler instability is likely to be more effective for AM transport. We implement Tayler torques as prescribed by Fuller, Piro, and Jermyn into models of massive stars, finding they remove the vast majority of the core’s AM as it contracts between the main-sequence and helium-burning phases of evolution. If core AM is conserved during core-collapse, we predict natal NS rotation periods of $P_{\rm NS} \approx 50\!-\!200 \, {\rm ms}$, suggesting these torques help explain the relatively slow rotation rates of most young NSs, and the rarity of rapidly rotating engine-driven supernovae. Stochastic spin-up via waves just before core-collapse, asymmetric explosions, and various binary evolution scenarios may increase the initial rotation rates of many NSs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 605 ◽  
pp. A31 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Pinçon ◽  
K. Belkacem ◽  
M. J. Goupil ◽  
J. P. Marques

Context. The seismic data provided by the space-borne missions CoRoT and Kepler enabled us to probe the internal rotation of thousands of evolved low-mass stars. Subsequently, several studies showed that current stellar evolution codes are unable to reproduce the low core rotation rates observed in these stars. These results indicate that an additional angular momentum transport process is necessary to counteract the spin up due to the core contraction during the post-main sequence evolution. For several candidates, the transport induced by internal gravity waves (IGW) could play a non-negligible role. Aims. We aim to investigate the effect of IGW generated by penetrative convection on the internal rotation of low-mass stars from the subgiant branch to the beginning of the red giant branch. Methods. A semi-analytical excitation model was used to estimate the angular momentum wave flux. The characteristic timescale associated with the angular momentum transport by IGW was computed and compared to the contraction timescale throughout the radiative region of stellar models at different evolutionary stages. Results. We show that IGW can efficiently counteract the contraction-driven spin up of the core of subgiant stars if the amplitude of the radial-differential rotation (between the center of the star and the top of the radiative zone) is higher than a threshold value. This threshold depends on the evolutionary stage and is comparable to the differential rotation rates inferred for a sample of subgiant stars observed by the satellite Kepler. Such an agreement can therefore be interpreted as the consequence of a regulation mechanism driven by IGW. This result is obtained under the assumption of a smooth rotation profile in the radiative region and holds true even if a wide range of values is considered for the parameters of the generation model. In contrast, on the red giant branch, we find that IGW remain insufficient, on their own, to explain the observations because of an excessive radiative damping. Conclusions. IGW generated by penetrative convection are able to efficiently extract angular momentum from the core of stars on the subgiant branch and accordingly have to be taken into account. Moreover, agreements with the observations reinforce the idea that their effect is essential to regulate the amplitude of the radial-differential rotation in subgiant stars. On the red giant branch, another transport mechanism must likely be invoked.



2020 ◽  
Vol 636 ◽  
pp. A76 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Spada ◽  
A. C. Lanzafame

Solar-like stars (M ≲ 1.3 M⊙) lose angular momentum through their magnetized winds. The resulting evolution of the surface rotation period, which can be directly measured photometrically, has the potential to be an accurate indicator of stellar age, and is constrained by observations of rotation periods of coeval stars, such as members of Galactic open clusters. A prominent observational feature of the mass–rotation period diagrams of open clusters is a sequence of relatively slower rotators. The formation and persistence of this slow-rotator sequence across several billion years imply an approximately coherent spin-down of the stars that belong to it. In particular, the sequence is observed to evolve coherently toward longer periods in progressively older clusters. Recent observations of the ≈700 Myr Praesepe and the 1 Gyr NGC 6811 clusters, however, are not fully consistent with this general pattern. While the stars of 1 M⊙ on the slow-rotator sequence of the older NGC 6811 have longer periods than their counterparts in the younger Praesepe, as expected, the two sequences essentially merge at lower masses (≲0.8 M⊙). In other words, it seems that low-mass stars have not been spinning down in the intervening 300 Myr. Here we show that this behavior is a manifestation of the variable rotational coupling in solar-like stars. The resurfacing of angular momentum from the interior can temporarily compensate for that lost at the surface due to wind braking. In our model the internal redistribution of angular momentum has a steep mass dependence; as a result, the re-coupling occurs at different ages for stars of different masses. The semi-empirical mass dependence of the rotational coupling timescale included in our model produces an evolution of the slow-rotator sequence in very good agreement with the observations. Our model, in particular, explains the stalled surface spin-down of low-mass stars between Praesepe and NGC 6811, and predicts that the same behavior should be observable at other ages in other mass ranges.



2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (S275) ◽  
pp. 367-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Rodríguez

AbstractThe formation of low mass stars takes place with the assistance of an accretion disk that transports gas and dust from the envelope of the system to the star, and a jet that removes angular momentum and allows accretion to proceed. In the radio, these ionized jets can be studied very close to the star via the thermal (free-free) emission they produce and at larger scales by the molecular outflows that result from their interaction with the surrounding medium. Is the same disk-jet process responsible for the formation of massive stars? I will review recent evidence for the presence of collimated jets and accretion disks in association with forming massive stars. The jets in massive protostars have large velocities that could produce a synchrotron component and I discuss the evidence for the presence of this non-thermal process in the jet associated with the HH 80-81 system.



2002 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 143-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee G. Mundy ◽  
Friedrich Wyrowski ◽  
Sarah Watt

Millimeter and submillimeter wavelength images of massive star-forming regions are uncovering the natal material distribution and revealing the complexities of their circumstellar environments on size scales from parsecs to 100’s of AU. Progress in these areas has been slower than for low-mass stars because massive stars are more distant, and because they are gregarious siblings with different evolutionary stages that can co-exist even within a core. Nevertheless, observational goals for the near future include the characterization of an early evolutionary sequence for massive stars, determination if the accretion process and formation sequence for massive stars is similar to that of low-mass stars, and understanding of the role of triggering events in massive star formation.



2011 ◽  
Vol 740 (2) ◽  
pp. 110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel A. Agüeros ◽  
Kevin R. Covey ◽  
Jenna J. Lemonias ◽  
Nicholas M. Law ◽  
Adam Kraus ◽  
...  


2018 ◽  
Vol 612 ◽  
pp. A61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc Dessart ◽  
Sung-Chul Yoon ◽  
Eli Livne ◽  
Roni Waldman

Massive stars with a core-halo structure are interesting objects for stellar physics and hydrodynamics. Using simulations for stellar evolution, radiation hydrodynamics, and radiative transfer, we study the explosion of stars with an extended and tenuous envelope (i.e. stars in which 95% of the mass is contained within 10% or less of the surface radius). We consider both H-rich supergiant and He-giant progenitors resulting from close-binary evolution and dying with a final mass of 2.8–5 M⊙. An extended envelope causes the supernova (SN) shock to brake and a reverse shock to form, sweeping core material into a dense shell. The shock-deposited energy, which suffers little degradation from expansion, is trapped in ejecta layers of moderate optical depth, thereby enhancing the SN luminosity at early times. With the delayed 56Ni heating, we find that the resulting optical and near-IR light curves all exhibit a double-peak morphology. We show how an extended progenitor can explain the blue and featureless optical spectra of some Type IIb and Ib SNe. The dense shell formed by the reverse shock leads to line profiles with a smaller and near-constant width. This ejecta property can explain the statistically narrower profiles of Type IIb compared to Type Ib SNe, as well as the peculiar Hα profile seen in SN 1993J. At early times, our He-giant star explosion model shows a high luminosity, a blue colour, and featureless spectra reminiscent of the Type Ib SN 2008D, suggesting a low-mass progenitor.



2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (4) ◽  
pp. 3795-3806 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wurster ◽  
Benjamin T Lewis

ABSTRACT Non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is the dominant process. We investigate the effect of magnetic fields (ideal and non-ideal) and turbulence (sub- and transsonic) on the formation of circumstellar discs that form nearly simultaneously with the formation of the protostar. This is done by modelling the gravitational collapse of a 1 M⊙ gas cloud that is threaded with a magnetic field and imposed with both rotational and turbulent velocities. We investigate magnetic fields that are parallel/antiparallel and perpendicular to the rotation axis, two rotation rates, and four Mach numbers. Disc formation occurs preferentially in the models that include non-ideal MHD where the magnetic field is antiparallel or perpendicular to the rotation axis. This is independent of the initial rotation rate and level of turbulence, suggesting that subsonic turbulence plays a minimal role in influencing the formation of discs. Aside from first core outflows that are influenced by the initial level of turbulence, non-ideal MHD processes are more important than turbulent processes during the formation of discs around low-mass stars.



1987 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 64-66
Author(s):  
Yoshio Tomita ◽  
Hiroshi Ohtani

To find evidence for collective star formation without massive stars in the dark cloud complex Kh141 (Saito 1980), a search for T-Tauri stars has been made.



2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (A29B) ◽  
pp. 473-473
Author(s):  
Dorottya Szécsi ◽  
Jonathan Mackey ◽  
Norbert Langer

AbstractThe first stellar generation in galactic globular clusters contained massive low-metallicity stars (Charbonnel et al. 2014). We modelled the evolution of this massive stellar population and found that such stars with masses 100-600 M⊙ evolve into cool RSGs (Szécsi et al. 2015). These RSGs spend not only the core-He-burning phase but even the last few 105 years of the core-H-burning phase on the SG branch. Due to the presence of hot massive stars in the cluster at the same time, we show that the RSG wind is trapped into photoionization confined shells (Mackey et al. 2014). We simulated the shell formation around such RSGs and find them to become gravitationally unstable (Szécsi et al. 2016). We propose a scenario in which these shells are responsible for the formation of the second generation low-mass stars in globular clusters with anomalous surface abundances.



2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (1) ◽  
pp. 518-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z Keszthelyi ◽  
G Meynet ◽  
M E Shultz ◽  
A David-Uraz ◽  
A ud-Doula ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The time evolution of angular momentum and surface rotation of massive stars are strongly influenced by fossil magnetic fields via magnetic braking. We present a new module containing a simple, comprehensive implementation of such a field at the surface of a massive star within the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (mesa) software instrument. We test two limiting scenarios for magnetic braking: distributing the angular momentum loss throughout the star in the first case, and restricting the angular momentum loss to a surface reservoir in the second case. We perform a systematic investigation of the rotational evolution using a grid of OB star models with surface magnetic fields (M⋆ = 5–60 M⊙, Ω/Ωcrit = 0.2–1.0, Bp = 1–20 kG). We then employ a representative grid of B-type star models (M⋆ = 5, 10, 15 M⊙, Ω/Ωcrit = 0.2, 0.5, 0.8, Bp = 1, 3, 10, 30 kG) to compare to the results of a recent self-consistent analysis of the sample of known magnetic B-type stars. We infer that magnetic massive stars arrive at the zero-age main sequence (ZAMS) with a range of rotation rates, rather than with one common value. In particular, some stars are required to have close-to-critical rotation at the ZAMS. However, magnetic braking yields surface rotation rates converging to a common low value, making it difficult to infer the initial rotation rates of evolved, slowly rotating stars.



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