Muon Creation in Supernova Matter Facilitates Neutrino-driven Explosions

Abstract

Muons can be created in nascent neutron stars (NSs) due to the high electron chemical potentials and the high temperatures. Because of their relatively lower abundance compared to electrons, their role has so far been ignored in numerical simulations of stellar core collapse and NS formation. However, the appearance of muons softens the NS equation of state, triggers faster NS contraction and thus leads to higher luminosities and mean energies of the emitted neutrinos. This strengthens the postshock heating by neutrinos and can facilitate explosions by the neutrino-driven mechanism.

6 pages, 4 figures; one more model added upon referee request; accepted by PRL

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• Black hole formation and fallback during the supernova explosion of a $40{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ star
• Fast-pairwise collective neutrino oscillations associated with asymmetric neutrino emissions in core-collapse supernova
• Anisotropic emission of neutrino and gravitational-wave signals from rapidly rotating core-collapse supernovae
• Proto-neutron star evolution with improved charged-current neutrino-nucleon interactions
• The final core collapse of pulsational pair instability supernovae
• Charged-Current Muonic Reactions in Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Dimension dependence of numerical simulations on gravitational waves from protoneutron stars
• New method for detecting fast neutrino flavor conversions in core-collapse supernova models with two-moment neutrino transport
• 3D Simulations of Oxygen Shell Burning with and without Magnetic Fields
• Equation of state and composition of proto-neutron stars and merger remnants with hyperons
• Leptonic and semi-leptonic neutrino interactions with muons in the proto-neutron star cooling
• A search for a cosmologically-relevant boson in muon decay
• Helicity-dependent distribution of strange quarks in the proton from nonlocal chiral effective theory
• Fast Neutrino Conversion in Hydrodynamic Simulations of Neutrino-Cooled Accretion Disks