Towards an understanding of long gamma-ray burst environments through circumstellar medium population synthesis predictions

Chrimes, A. A.; Gompertz, B.; Канн, Д. А.; Marle, Allard Jan van; Eldridge, J. J.; Groot, P.; Laskar, T.; Levan, A. J.; Nicholl, Matt; Stanway, Elizabeth R.; Wiersema, K.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stac1796

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 157 publications

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“…This allows us to take a different approach when comparing observational systems and theory: instead of creating a model to match the observations as MNRAS 520, 4740-4746 (2023) best as possible, we can search through our existing predictions and find systems that are similar to those observed (e.g. Xiao et al 2019 Chrimes et al 2022 ;Ghodla et al 2022 ;Ste v ance et al 2022 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

VFTS 243 as predicted by the BPASS fiducial models

Stevance

Ghodla

Richards

et al. 2023

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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The recent discovery of an unambiguous quiescent BH and main sequence O star companion in VFTS 243 opens the door to new constraints on theoretical stellar evolution and population models looking to reproduce the progenitors of black hole - black hole binaries. Here we show that the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis fiducial models (BPASSv2.2.1) natively predict VFTS 243-like systems: We find that VFTS 243 likely originated from a binary system in a ∼15 day orbit with primary mass ranging from 40 to 50 M⊙ and secondary star with initial mass 24–25 M⊙. Additionally we find that the death of the primary star must have resulted in a low energy explosion E < 1050 ergs. With a uniform prior we find that the kick velocity of the new-born black hole was ≤10 km s−1. The very low eccentricity reported for VFTS 243 and the subsequent conclusion by the authors that the SN kick must have been very small is in line with the peak in the posterior distribution between 0 and 5 km s−1 found from our numerical simulations performed with a uniform prior. Finally, the reduced Hobbs kick distribution commonly used in black hole population synthesis is strongly disfavoured, whereas the Bray kick with the most recent parameter calibration predicts 4.2 ± 3.4 km s−1, which is very consistent with the posterior velocity distributions obtained for our matching VFTS 243-like models using a uniform kick prior.

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confidence: 99%

VFTS 243 as predicted by the BPASS fiducial models

Stevance

Ghodla

Richards

et al. 2023

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…We also neglect contributions from the outflows associated with the prompt phase or the progenitor star. This is justified since at a distance r in the density of a typical Wolf-Rayet wind is already approximately one order of magnitude lower than the typical intragalactic densities (n ≃ 1 cm −3 ), and thus much lower than the range of densities we explore in our simulations (Chrimes et al 2022;Eldridge et al 2006).…”

Section: Physical Setting Of the Grb Surroundingsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Time Evolving Photo Ionisation Device (TEPID): A novel code for out-of-equilibrium gas ionisation

Luminari,

Nicastro,

Krongold

et al. 2023

A&A

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Context. Photoionisation is one of the main mechanisms at work in the gaseous environment of bright astrophysical sources. A great deal of information on the gas physics, chemistry and kinematics, and on the ionising source itself, can be gathered through optical to X-ray spectroscopy. While several public time equilibrium photoionisation codes are readily available and can be used to infer average gas properties at equilibrium, time-evolving photoionisation models have only very recently started to become available. They are needed when the ionising source varies faster than the typical gas equilibration timescale. Using equilibrium models to analyse spectra of non-equilibrium photoionised gas may lead to inaccurate results, and prevents a solid assessment of gas density, physics, and geometry. Aims. Our main objective is to present and make available the Time-Evolving PhotoIonisation Device (TEPID), a new code that self-consistently solves time evolving photoionisation equations (both thermal and ionisation balance) and accurately follows the response of the gas to changes in the ionising source. Methods. TEPID self-consistently follows the gas temperature and ionisation in time by including all the main ionisation/recombination and heating/cooling mechanisms. The code takes in input the ionising light curve and spectral energy distribution and solves the time-evolving equations as a function of gas electron density and of time. The running time is intelligently optimised by an internal algorithm that initially scans the input light curve to set a time-dependent integration frequency. The code is built in a modular way, can be applied to a variety of astrophysical scenarios and produces time-resolved gas absorption spectra to fit the data. Results. To describe the structure and main features of the code, we present two applications of TEPID to two dramatically different astrophysical scenarios: the typical ionised absorbers observed in the X-ray spectra of active galactic nuclei (e.g. warm absorbers and ultra-fast outflows), and the circumburst environment of a gamma-ray burst. For both cases we show how the gas energy and ionisation balances vary as a function of time, gas density and distance from the ionising source. We show that time-evolving photoionisation leads to unique ionisation patterns that cannot be reproduced by stationary photoionisation codes when the gas is out of equilibrium. This demonstrates the need for codes such as TEPID in view of the unprecedented capabilities that will be offered by the upcoming high-resolution X-ray spectrometers on board missions like XRISM or Athena.

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Extragalactic fast X-ray transient candidates discovered byChandra(2014–2022)

Quirola-Vásquez

Bauer

Jonker

et al. 2023

A&A

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Context. Extragalactic fast X-ray transients (FXTs) are short flashes of X-ray photons of unknown origin that last a few minutes to hours. Aims. We extend the previous search for extragalactic FXTs (based on sources in the Chandra Source Catalog 2.0, CSC2) to further Chandra archival data between 2014 and 2022. Methods. We extracted X-ray data using a method similar to that employed by CSC2 and applied identical search criteria as in previous work. Results. We report the detection of eight FXT candidates, with peak 0.3–10 keV fluxes between 1 × 10−13 to 1 × 10−11 erg cm−2 s−1 and T90 values from 0.3 to 12.1 ks. This sample of FXTs likely has redshifts between 0.7 and 1.8. Three FXT candidates exhibit light curves with a plateau (≈1−3 ks duration) followed by a power-law decay and X-ray spectral softening, similar to what was observed for a few before-reported FXTs. In light of the new, expanded source lists (eight FXTs with known redshifts from a previous paper and this work), we have updated the event sky rates derived previously, finding 36.9−8.3+9.7 deg−2 yr−1 for the extragalactic samples for a limiting flux of ≳1 × 10−13 erg cm−2 s−1, calculated the first FXT X-ray luminosity function, and compared the volumetric density rate between FXTs and other transient classes. Conclusions. Our latest Chandra-detected extragalactic FXT candidates boost the total Chandra sample by ∼50%, and appear to have a similar diversity of possible progenitors.

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Towards an understanding of long gamma-ray burst environments through circumstellar medium population synthesis predictions

Cited by 5 publications

References 157 publications

VFTS 243 as predicted by the BPASS fiducial models

VFTS 243 as predicted by the BPASS fiducial models

Time Evolving Photo Ionisation Device (TEPID): A novel code for out-of-equilibrium gas ionisation

Extragalactic fast X-ray transient candidates discovered byChandra(2014–2022)

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