Nuclear composition of magnetized gamma-ray burst jets

Abstract

Abstract We investigate the fraction of metal nuclei in the relativistic jets of gamma-ray bursts associated with core-collapse supernovae. We simulate the fallback in jet-induced explosions with two-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamics calculations and the jet acceleration with steady, radial, relativistic magnetohydrodynamics calculations, and derive the detailed nuclear composition of the jet by post-processing calculation. We found that if the temperature at the jet launch site is above 4.7 × 109 K, quasi-statistical equilibrium is established and heavy nuclei are dissociated into light particles such as 4He during the acceleration of the jets. The criterion for the survival of metal nuclei is written in terms of the isotropic jet luminosity as $L_{\rm j}^{\rm iso} \lesssim 3.9 \times 10^{50} ( R_{\rm i}/10^{7}\ {\rm cm})^2$(1 + σi) erg s−1, where Ri and σi are the initial radius of the jets and the initial magnetization parameter, respectively. If the jet is initially dominated by radiation field (i.e., σi ≪ 1) and the isotropic luminosity is relatively high ($L_{\rm j}^{\rm iso} \gtrsim 4 \times 10^{52}$ erg s−1), the metal nuclei cannot survive in the jet. On the other hand, if the jet is mainly accelerated by magnetic field (i.e., σi ≫ 1), metal nuclei initially contained in the jet can survive without serious dissociation even in the case of a high-luminosity jet. If the jet contains metal nuclei, the dominant nuclei are 28Si, 16O, and 32S and the mean mass number can be 〈A〉 ∼ 25.