The Gravothermal Instability at all scales: from Turnaround Radius to Supernovae

Abstract

The gravitational instability, responsible for the formation of the structure of the Universe, occurs below energy thresholds and above spatial scales of a self-gravitating expanding region, when thermal energy can no longer counterbalance self-gravity. I argue that at sufficiently-large scales, dark energy may restore thermal stability. This stability re-entrance of an isothermal sphere defines a turnaround radius, which dictates the maximum allowed size of any structure generated by gravitational instability. On the opposite limit of high energies and small scales, I will show that an ideal, quantum or classical, self-gravitating gas is subject to a high-energy relativistic gravothermal instability. It occurs at sufficiently-high energy and small radii, when thermal energy cannot support its own gravitational attraction. Applications of the phenomenon include neutron stars and core-collapse supernovae. I also extend the original Oppenheimer--Volkov calculation of the maximum mass limit of ideal neutron cores to the non-zero temperature regime, relevant to the whole cooling stage from a hot proto-neutron star down to the final cold state.

Minor amendments to match published version

References in corpus (10)

• Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
• A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary
• The Equation of State of Hot, Dense Matter and Neutron Stars
• Relativistic Gravothermal Instabilities
• Corrigendum to "Thermodynamical instabilities of perfect fluid spheres in General Relativity"
• Thermal Mass limit of Neutron Cores
• Maximum turnaround radius in $f(R)$ gravity
• Gravothermal Catastrophe with a Cosmological Constant
• Relativistic Gravitational Phase Transitions and Instabilities of the Fermi Gas
• Gravitational instabilities of isothermal spheres in the presence of a cosmological constant

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Accretion disks around a static black hole in $f(R)$ gravity
• Caloric curves of classical self-gravitating systems in general relativity
• Turnaround size of non-spherical structures
• Turnaround physics beyond spherical symmetry
• The maximum turnaround radius for axisymmetric cosmic structures
• Turnaround radius in scalar-tensor gravity with quasilocal mass