A common envelope jets supernova (CEJSN) impostor scenario for fast blue optical transients

Abstract

I propose a new scenario, the polar common envelope jets supernova (CEJSN) impostor scenario, to account for AT2018cow-like fast blue optical transients (FBOTs). The polar CEJSN impostor scenario evolves through four main phases. (1) A red supergiant (RSG) star expands to tidally interact with a neutron star (NS) companion (or a black hole). The interaction increases the RSG mass loss rate to form a circumstellar matter (CSM) halo to ~0.1pc. (2) Shortly before the onset of a common envelope evolution (CEE) and about a year before explosion the NS accretes mass from the RSG envelope and launches jets that inflate two opposite lobes in the CSM within ~100AU. (3) The NS-RSG system enters a CEE phase during which the system ejects most of the envelope mass in a dense equatorial outflow. (4) At the termination of the CEE the leftover envelope forms a circumbinary disk around the NS-core system. The NS accretes mass from the circumbinary disk and launches energetic jets that when collide with the fronts of the CSM lobes power an FBOT event. The low mass of the jets-lobes interaction zones and their large distance, of about 100AU, from the center account for the fast transient. In the future the core collapses to form a second NS. In the far future the two NS might merge. I suggest that FBOTs and similar fast transients are CEJSN impostors which compose a large fraction of the progenitors of NS-NS merger binaries.

Accepted for publication in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics

References in corpus (15)

• Energetic eruptions leading to a peculiar hydrogen-rich explosion of a massive star
• The Koala: A Fast Blue Optical Transient with Luminous Radio Emission from a Starburst Dwarf Galaxy at $z=0.27$
• Explaining iPTF14hls as a common envelope jets supernova
• Magnetar-powered superluminous supernovae must first be exploded by jets
• Disk formation and jet inclination effects in Common Envelopes
• Shaping Planetary Nebulae by Light Jets
• A Blast from the Pasture: Studying the environment of AT 2018cow with MUSE
• The Peculiar Transient AT2018cow: A Possible Origin of A Type Ibn/IIn Supernova
• The nearby luminous transient AT2018cow: a magnetar formed in a sub-relativistically expanding non-jetted explosion
• Nuclear Burning in Collapsar Accretion Disks
• AT 2018cow VLBI: No Long-Lived Relativistic Outflow
• X-ray transients from the accretion-induced collapse of white dwarfs
• Simulating highly-eccentric common envelope jets supernova (CEJSN) impostors
• ALMA Polarimetry of AT2018cow
• Variable jets at the termination of the common envelope evolution

Cited by in corpus (5)

• A flash of polarized optical light points to an aspherical "cow"
• Mergers of neutron stars and black holes with cores of giant stars: a population synthesis study
• A Population Study on the Radio Emission of Fast Blue Optical Transients
• Pre-explosion, explosion, and post-explosion jets in supernova SN 2019zrk
• Light-curve Modelling for The Initial Rising Phase of Rapidly-evolving Transients Powered by Continuous Outflow