The Initial Mass–Final Luminosity Relation of Type II Supernova Progenitors: Hints of New Physics?

Abstract

We revise the theoretical initial mass-final luminosity relation for progenitors of type IIP and IIL supernovae. The effects of the major uncertainties, as those due to the treatment of convection, semiconvection, rotation, mass loss, nuclear reaction rates and neutrinos production rates are discussed in some details.The effects of mass transfer between components of close-binary systems are also considered. By comparing the theoretical predictions to a sample of type II supernovae for which the initial mass of the progenitors and the pre-explosive luminosity are available, we conclude that stellar rotation may explain a few progenitors which appear brighter than expected in case of non-rotating models. In the most extreme case, SN2012ec, an initial rotational velocity up to 300 km s −1 is required. Alternatively, these objects could be mass-loosing components of close binaries. However, most of the observed progenitors appear fainter than expected. This occurrence seems to indicate that the Compton and pair neutrino energy-loss rates, as predicted by the standard electro-weak theory, are not efficient enough and that an additional negative contribution to the stellar energy balance is required. We show that axions coupled with parameters accessible to currently planned experiments, such as IAXO and, possibly, Baby-IAXO and ALPS II, may account for the missing contribution to the stellar energy-loss.

Progenitor properties of type II supernovae: fitting to hydrodynamical models using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods

“…A detailed analysis of the progenitor star of SN 2012ec is beyond the scope of this work. Nevertheless, we note that the above combination can be obtained if we assume an enhanced rotation or binarity for SN 2012ec, as proposed by Straniero et al (2019). Rotation produces higher mass helium cores and lower mass H-rich envelopes.…”

The landscape of QCD axion models

“…The central temperature and density of the Sun [363], RGB stars, HB stars and WDs are also shown, for reference. In the case of HB and RGB, these are the result of a numerical simulation of a 0.8 M model as obtained with the FuNS code [364]. The WD region is estimated using a polytropic model of WDs with mass from 0.6 to 0.7M , as discussed in Ref.…”

“…More recently, the analysis of SN progenitors has also indicated a preference for additional cooling, in the form of axions or, possibly, other light particles [364]. Surveys show that in many cases the SN type II progenitors are red supergiants with a certain maximal (surface) luminosity.…”

“…The addition of a novel cooling channel, however, might help reconciling the simulations with the observations. Because of the more efficient cooling, the development of the envelop would freeze at lower luminosities, allowing for more massive stars to end up with the required surface luminosity [364]. In the case of axions, the hint is to rather large couplings to both electrons and photons, close to the current HB and RGB bounds.…”

Effect of binary evolution on the inferred initial and final core masses of hydrogen-rich, Type II supernova progenitors

“…In part there are caveats that are inherent to the observations and the possible role of selection effects, such as dust extinction of detected red supergiant progenitors (e.g., Walmswell & Eldridge 2012;Beasor & Davies 2016) or limited accuracy of the exact position of the progenitor in the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram (Davies & Beasor 2018). There are also uncertainties in the link between the inferred pre-SN mass of the progenitor star and its ZAMS mass that exist anyway in single stellar evolution, including the mass-loss rate through winds (e.g., Smith 2014;Renzo et al 2017), the overshooting of the convective core (e.g., Ribas et al 2000;Claret 2007;Brott et al 2011a;Straniero et al 2019) and the theoretical preSN luminosities of the progenitors (e.g., Farrell et al 2020).…”