Interior Of Protoneutron Stars Research Articles

Numerical simulations of the Tayler–Spruit dynamo in proto-magnetars

ABSTRACT The Tayler–Spruit dynamo is one of the most promising mechanisms proposed to explain angular momentum transport during stellar evolution. Its development in proto-neutron stars spun-up by supernova fallback has also been put forward as a scenario to explain the formation of very magnetized neutron stars called magnetars. Using three-dimensional direct numerical simulations, we model the proto-neutron star interior as a stably stratified spherical Couette flow with the outer sphere that rotates faster than the inner one. We report the existence of two subcritical dynamo branches driven by the Tayler instability. They differ by their equatorial symmetry (dipolar or hemispherical) and the magnetic field scaling, which is in agreement with different theoretical predictions (by Fuller and Spruit, respectively). The magnetic dipole of the dipolar branch is found to reach intensities compatible with observational constraints on magnetars.

Gravitational wave signature of proto-neutron star convection: I. MHD numerical simulations

ABSTRACT Gravitational waves provide a unique and powerful opportunity to constrain the dynamics in the interior of proto-neutron stars during core collapse supernovae. Convective motions play an important role in generating neutron stars magnetic fields, which could explain magnetar formation in the presence of fast rotation. We compute the gravitational wave emission from proto-neutron star convection and its associated dynamo, by post-processing three-dimensional MHD simulations of a model restricted to the convective zone in the anelastic approximation. We consider two different proto-neutron star structures representative of early times (with a convective layer) and late times (when the star is almost entirely convective). In the slow rotation regime, the gravitational wave emission follows a broad spectrum peaking at about three times the turnover frequency. In this regime, the inclusion of magnetic fields slightly decreases the amplitude without changing the spectrum significantly compared to a non-magnetized simulation. Fast rotation changes both the amplitude and spectrum dramatically. The amplitude is increased by a factor of up to a few thousands. The spectrum is characterized by several peaks associated with inertial modes, whose frequency scales with the rotation frequency. Using simple physical arguments, we derive scalings that reproduce quantitatively several aspects of these numerical results. We also observe an excess of low-frequency gravitational waves, which appears at the transition to a strong field dynamo characterized by a strong axisymmetric toroidal magnetic field. This signature of dynamo action could be used to constrain the dynamo efficiency in a proto-neutron star with future gravitational wave detections.

The equation of state at finite temperature: Structure and composition of protoneutron stars

We study the hadron-quark phase transition at finite temperature in the interior of protoneutron stars, combining the equation of state obtained within the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach for hadronic matter with the MIT bag and the Dyson-Schwinger models for quark matter. We discuss the dependence of the results on different nuclear three-body forces and on details of the quark model. We find that a maximum mass exceeding two solar masses can be obtained with a strong three-body force and suitable parameter values in the Dyson-Schwinger model.

IMPACTS OF ROTATION ON THREE-DIMENSIONAL HYDRODYNAMICS OF CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE

We perform a series of simplified numerical experiments to explore how rotation impacts on the three-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamics of core-collapse supernovae. For the sake of our systematic study, we employ a light-bulb scheme to trigger explosions and a three-flavor neutrino leakage scheme to treat deleptonization effects and neutrino losses from proto-neutron star interior. Using a 15 solar mass progenitor, we compute thirty models in 3D with a wide variety of initial angular momentum and light-bulb neutrino luminosity. We find that the rotation can help onset of neutrino-driven explosions for the models in which the initial angular momentum is matched to that obtained in recent stellar evolutionary calculations (0.3-3 rad/s at the center). For the models with larger initial angular momentum, the shock surface deforms to be more oblate due to larger centrifugal force. This makes not only a gain region more concentrated around the equatorial plane, but also the mass in the gain region bigger. As a result, buoyant bubbles tend to be coherently formed and rise in the equatorial region, which pushes the revived shock ever larger radii until a global explosion is triggered. We find that these are the main reasons that the preferred direction of explosion in 3D rotating models is often perpendicular to the spin axis, which is in sharp contrast to the polar explosions around the axis that was obtained in previous 2D simulations.

Hybrid protoneutron stars with the Dyson-Schwinger quark model

We study the hadron-quark phase transition at finite temperature in the interior of protoneutron stars, combining the Dyson-Schwinger model for quark matter with the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach for hadronic matter. We discuss the dependence of the results on different nuclear three-body forces and on details of the quark model. %Compared to the bag model, the transition from the hadron phase %(without hyperons) to the quark phase appears at large density. A maximum mass exceeding two solar masses can be obtained with a strong three-body force and suitable parameter values in the Dyson-Schwinger model. With a hybrid configuration, the maximum mass of protoneutron stars is larger then that of cold neutron stars, such that a delayed collapse might be possible in principle.

Revisiting quark stars under the influence of strong magnetic fields

AbstractQuark matter at finite temperature and subject to strong magnetic fields is possibly present in the early stages of heavy ion collisions and in the interior of protoneutron stars. We use the mean field approximation to investigate this type of quark matter described by the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. The energy per baryon of magnetized quark matter becomes more bound than nuclear matter made of iron nuclei, for magnetic fields around 1019 G. When the su(3) NJL model is applied to stellar matter, the maximum mass configurations are always above 1.45 solar masses and may be as high as 1.9 solar masses for a central magnetic field of 1018 G. These numbers are within the masses of observed neutron stars but exclude the recently measured star with 1.97 solar mass.The effect of the magnetic field on the effective quark masses and chemical potentials is only felt for quite strong magnetic fields, above 5 × 1018 G, with larger effects for the lower densities. Spin polarizations are more sensitive to weaker magnetic fields and are larger for lower temperatures and lower densities.

FINITE TEMPERATURE MATTER SUBJECT TO STRONG MAGNETIC FIELDS

Quark matter at finite temperature and subject to strong magnetic fields is possibly present in the early stages of heavy ion collisions and in the interior of protoneutron stars. We use the mean field approximation to investigate this type of quark matter described by the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. The effect of the magnetic field on the effective quark masses and chemical potentials is only felt for quite strong magnetic fields, above 5 × 1018 G , with larger effects for the lower densities. Spin polarizations are more sensitive to weaker magnetic fields and are larger for lower temperatures and lower densities.

Finite temperature quark matter under strong magnetic fields

In this paper, we use the mean-field approximation to investigate quark matter described by both SU(2) and SU(3) versions of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model at temperatures below 150 MeV and subject to a strong magnetic field. This kind of matter is possibly present in the early stages of heavy-ion collisions and in the interior of protoneutron stars. We have studied symmetric and asymmetric quark matter. The effect of the magnetic field on the effective quark masses and chemical potentials is only felt for quite strong magnetic fields, above $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{18}$ G, with larger effects for the lower densities. Spin polarizations are more sensitive to weaker magnetic fields and are larger for lower temperatures and lower densities. Temperature tends to wash out the magnetic field effects.

Pulsar kicks by anisotropic neutrino emission from quark matter in strong magnetic fields

Aims. We critically discuss a pulsar acceleration mechanism based on asymmetric neutrino emission from the direct quark Urca process in the interior of proto neutron stars.

Hybrid protoneutron stars with the MIT bag model

We study the hadron-quark phase transition in the interior of protoneutron stars. For the hadronic sector, we use a microscopic equation of state involving nucleons and hyperons derived within the finite-temperature Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone many-body theory, with realistic two-body and three-body forces. For the description of quark matter, we employ the MIT bag model both with a constant and a density-dependent bag parameter. We calculate the structure of protostars with the equation of state comprising both phases and find maximum masses below 1.6 solar masses. Metastable heavy hybrid protostars are not found.