QCD phase transition drives supernova explosion of a very massive star

Tobias Fischer

doi:10.1140/epja/s10050-021-00571-z

Tobias Fischer

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-021-00571-z

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Abstract

The nature of core-collapse supernova (SN) explosions is yet incompletely understood. The present article revisits the scenario in which the release of latent heat due to a first-order phase transition, from normal nuclear matter to the quark–gluon plasma, liberates the necessary energy to explain the observed SN explosions. Here, the role of the metallicity of the stellar progenitor is investigated, comparing a solar metallicity and a low-metallicity case, both having a zero-age main sequence (ZAMS) mass of 75 M_odot . It is found that low-metallicity models belong exclusively to the failed SN branch, featuring the formation of black holes without explosions. It excludes this class of massive star explosions as possible site for the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements at extremely low metallicity, usually associated with the early universe.

Highlights

Several SN explosions scenarios, i.e. the liberation of energy from the nascent compact central hot and dense object—the proto-neutron star (PNS)—to the bounce shock have been proposed; the magneto-rotational mechanism [2] and the presently considered standard neutrino-heating mechanism [3]
With model parameters selected such that the conditions for the hadron–quark phase transition to occur at the interior of massive compact stars, i.e. densities for the onset of quark-matter on the order of 2–5 ×ρsat, one is led to the conclusions that the associated SN explosion mechanism is likely to operate for the high-mass end of core-collapse SN progenitors, associated with the zero-age main sequence (ZAMS) mass of > 30 M [36], whereas less massive progenitor stars would be subject to other SN explosion scenarios
The present article reports about results of two core-collapse SN simulations of very massive progenitor stars with the same ZAMS mass of 75 M but different metallicities

Summary

Introduction

Several SN explosions scenarios, i.e. the liberation of energy from the nascent compact central hot and dense object—the proto-neutron star (PNS)—to the bounce shock have been proposed; the magneto-rotational mechanism [2] and the presently considered standard neutrino-heating mechanism [3]. For the low-metallicity 75 M progenitor, the high mass accretion rate during the early post-bounce evolution results in a critical behavior when the conditions are reached for the hadron–quark phase transition.

Results

Conclusion