Laminar Flame Speeds in Degenerate Oxygen-Neon Mixtures

Abstract

The collapse of degenerate oxygen-neon cores (i.e., electron-capture supernovae or accretion-induced collapse) proceeds through a phase in which a deflagration wave ("flame") forms at or near the center and propagates through the star. In models, the assumed speed of this flame influences whether this process leads to an explosion or to the formation of a neutron star. We calculate the laminar flame speeds in degenerate oxygen-neon mixtures with compositions motivated by detailed stellar evolution models. These mixtures include trace amounts of carbon and have a lower electron fraction than those considered in previous work. We find that trace carbon has little effect on the flame speeds, but that material with electron fraction $Y_e\approx 0.48-0.49$ has laminar flame speeds that are $\approx 2$ times faster than those at $Y_e=0.5$. We provide tabulated flame speeds and a corresponding fitting function so that the impact of this difference can be assessed via full star hydrodynamical simulations of the collapse process.

12 pages, 12 figures; Accepted to ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Hydrodynamic Simulations of Electron-capture Supernovae: Progenitor and Dimension Dependence
• Thermonuclear and Electron-Capture Supernovae from Stripped-Envelope Stars
• Triggering Electron Capture Supernovae: Dark Matter Effects in Degenerate White-Dwarf-like Cores of Super-Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars
• Drawing the line between explosion and collapse in electron-capture supernovae -- I. Impact of conductive flame speeds and ignition conditions on the explosion mechanism