Engineering topics

Pejcha, Ondrej

Publications and source records attributed to Pejcha, Ondrej.

3 records

DOE OSTI2017

The Nickel Mass Distribution of Normal Type II Supernovae

Core-collapse supernova (SN) explosions expose the structure and environment of massive stars at the moment of their death. We use the global fitting technique of Pejcha and Prieto to estimate a set of physical parameters of 19 normal SNe II, such as their distance moduli, reddenings, {sup 56}Ni masses M{sub Ni}, and explosion energies E{sub exp} from multicolor light curves and photospheric velocity curves. We confirm and characterize known correlations between M{sub Ni} and bolometric luminosity at 50 days after the explosion, and between M{sub Ni} and E{sub exp}. We pay special attention to the observed distribution of M{sub Ni} coming from a joint sample of 38 SNe II, which can be described as a skewed-Gaussian-like distribution between 0.005 M{sub ⊙} and 0.280 M{sub ⊙}, with a median of 0.031 M{sub ⊙}, mean of 0.046 M{sub ⊙}, standard deviation of 0.048 M{sub ⊙}, and skewness of 3.050. We use a two-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and two-sample Anderson–Darling test to compare the observed distribution of M{sub Ni} to results from theoretical hydrodynamical codes of core-collapse explosions with the neutrino mechanism presented in the literature. Our results show that the theoretical distributions obtained from the codes tested in this work, KEPLER and Prometheus Hot Bubble, are compatible with the observations irrespective of different pre-SN calibrations and different maximum mass of the progenitors.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2012

A GLOBAL PHYSICAL MODEL FOR CEPHEIDS

We perform a global fit to {approx}5000 radial velocity and {approx}177, 000 magnitude measurements in 29 photometric bands covering 0.3 {mu}m to 8.0 {mu}m distributed among 287 Galactic, Large Magellanic Cloud, and Small Magellanic Cloud Cepheids with P > 10 days. We assume that the Cepheid light curves and radial velocities are fully characterized by distance, reddening, and time-dependent radius and temperature variations. We construct phase curves of radius and temperature for periods between 10 and 100 days, which yield light-curve templates for all our photometric bands and can be easily generalized to any additional band. With only four to six parameters per Cepheid, depending on the existence of velocity data and the amount of freedom in the distance, the models have typical rms light and velocity curve residuals of 0.05 mag and 3.5 km s{sup -1}. The model derives the mean Cepheid spectral energy distribution and its derivative with respect to temperature, which deviate from a blackbody in agreement with metal-line and molecular opacity effects. We determine a mean reddening law toward the Cepheids in our sample, which is not consistent with standard assumptions in either the optical or near-IR. Based on stellar atmosphere models, we predict the biases in distance, reddening, and temperature determinations due to the metallicity and quantify the metallicity signature expected for our fit residuals. The observed residuals as a function of wavelength show clear differences between the individual galaxies, which are compatible with these predictions. In particular, we find that metal-poor Cepheids appear hotter. Finally, we provide a framework for optimally selecting filters that yield the smallest overall errors in Cepheid parameter determination or filter combinations for suppressing or enhancing the metallicity effects on distance determinations. We make our templates publicly available.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2012

THE PHYSICS OF THE NEUTRINO MECHANISM OF CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE

Although it is known that the stalled accretion shock in models of core-collapse supernovae turns into explosion when the neutrino luminosity from the proto-neutron star (PNS) exceeds a critical value (L{sup crit}{sub {nu},core}) (the 'neutrino mechanism'), the physics of L{sup crit}{sub {nu},core} has never been systematically explored. We solve the accretion problem between the PNS surface and the accretion shock. We quantify the deep connection between the general problem of accretion flows with bounding shocks and the neutrino mechanism. In particular, we show that there is a maximum, critical sound speed above which the shock jump conditions cannot be satisfied and steady-state accretion is impossible. This physics is general and does not depend on a specific heating mechanism. For the simple model of pressure-less free fall onto a shock bounding an isothermal accretion flow, we show that shock solutions are possible only for sound speed c{sub T} < c{sup crit}{sub T} and that c{sup 2}{sub T}/v{sub esc}{sup 2} = 3/16 = 0.1875 at c{sup crit}{sub T}. We generalize this result to the supernova problem, showing that the same physics determines L{sup crit}{sub {nu},core}. The critical condition for explosion can be written as c{sup 2}{sub S}/v{sup 2}{sub esc} {approx_equal} 0.19, where c{sub S} is the adiabatic sound speed. This 'antesonic' condition describes L{sup crit}{sub {nu},core} over a broad range of parameters, and other criteria proposed in the literature fail to capture this physics. We show that the accretion luminosity reduces L{sup crit}{sub {nu},core} non-trivially. A larger PNS radius decreases L{sup crit}{sub {nu},core}, implying that a stiff high-density equation of state may be preferred. Finally, using an analytic model, we provide evidence that the reduction of L{sup crit}{sub {nu},core} seen in recent multi-dimensional simulations results from reduced cooling efficiency, rather than an increased heating rate.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗