Impacts of the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ reaction rate on ${}^{56}\mathrm{Ni}$ nucleosynthesis in pair-instability supernovae

Abstract

Nuclear reactions are key to our understanding of stellar evolution, particularly the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ rate, which is known to significantly influence the lower and upper ends of the black hole (BH) mass distribution due to pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). However, these reaction rates have not been sufficiently determined. We use the $\text{MESA}$ stellar evolution code to explore the impact of uncertainty in the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ rate on PISN explosions, focusing on nucleosynthesis and explosion energy by considering the high resolution of the initial mass. Our findings show that the mass of synthesized radioactive nickel (${}^{56}\mathrm{Ni}$) and the explosion energy increase with ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ rate for the same initial mass, except in the high-mass edge region. With a high (about twice the $\text{STARLIB}$ standard value) rate, the maximum amount of nickel produced falls below 70 $M_{\odot }$, while with a low rate (about half of the standard value) it increases up to 83.9 $M_{\odot }$. These results highlight that carbon "preheating" plays a crucial role in PISNe by determining core concentration when a star initiates expansion. Our results also suggest that the onset of the expansion, which means the end of compression, competes with collapse caused by helium photodisintegration, and the maximum mass that can lead to an explosion depends on the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ reaction rate.

17 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (44)

• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA)
• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation
• GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of $150M_{\odot }$
• Pulsational Pair-Instability Supernovae
• Pulsational pair instability as an explanation for the most luminous supernovae
• Properties and astrophysical implications of the 150 Msun binary black hole merger GW190521
• Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Time-Dependent Convection, Energy Conservation, Automatic Differentiation, and Infrastructure
• The Effect of Pair-Instability Mass Loss on Black Hole Mergers
• Mind the gap: The location of the lower edge of the pair instability supernovae black hole mass gap
• Very massive stars, pair-instability supernovae and intermediate-mass black holes with the SEVN code
• An excess of massive stars in the local 30 Doradus starburst
• The 12C(a,g)16O reaction and its implications for stellar helium burning
• The Evolution of Massive Helium Stars Including Mass Loss
• Constraints from gravitational wave detections of binary black hole mergers on the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ rate
• The Pair-Instability Mass Gap for Black Holes
• Formation of GW190521 from stellar evolution: the impact of the hydrogen-rich envelope, dredge-up and ${}^{12}$C($\alpha$, $\gamma$)${}^{16}$O rate on the pair-instability black hole mass gap
• The GW190521 Mass Gap Event and the Primordial Black Hole Scenario
• Binary black holes in the pair-instability mass gap
• On Variations Of Pre-Supernova Model Properties
• Minding the gap: GW190521 as a straddling binary
• GW190521 may be an intermediate mass ratio inspiral
• Intermediate-mass Black Holes from High Massive-star Binary Fractions in Young Star Clusters
• Predictions for the hydrogen-free ejecta of pulsational pair-instability supernovae
• Observing intermediate-mass black holes and the upper--stellar-mass gap with LIGO and Virgo
• Population III Binary Black Holes: Effects of Convective Overshooting on Formation of GW190521
• Formation of Binary Black Holes Similar to GW190521 with a Total Mass of $\sim 150M_{\odot }$ from Population III Binary Star Evolution
• A detailed analysis of GW190521 with phenomenological waveform models
• Merger rate density of binary black holes through isolated Population I, II, III and extremely metal-poor binary star evolution
• Dependence of S-Process Nucleosynthesis in Massive Stars on Triple-Alpha and 12C(a,g)16O Reaction Rate Uncertainties
• Bayesian Estimation of Thermonuclear Reaction Rates
• Formation of black holes in the pair-instability mass gap: evolution of a post-collision star
• Statistical Methods for Thermonuclear Reaction Rates and Nucleosynthesis Simulations
• "Super-Kilonovae" from Massive Collapsars as Signatures of Black-Hole Birth in the Pair-instability Mass Gap
• Filling the Black Hole Mass Gap: Avoiding Pair Instability in Massive Stars through Addition of Non-Nuclear Energy
• A Study of Primordial Very Massive Star Evolution
• Detecting Pair-Instability Supernovae at z<5 with the James Webb Space Telescope
• Searches for Population III pair-instability supernovae: Predictions for ULTIMATE-Subaru and WFIRST
• PISN-explorer: hunting the descendants of very massive first stars
• Pulsational pair-instability and the mass gap of Population III Black Holes: Effects of overshooting
• GW190521 formation scenarios via relativistic accretion
• Euclid detectability of pair instability supernovae in binary population synthesis models consistent with merging binary black holes
• Hypercritical accretion during common envelopes in triples leading to binary black holes in the pair-instability-supernova mass gap
• Searches for Population III Pair-Instability Supernovae: Impact of Gravitational Lensing Magnification
• A Gap No More: Mechanism for Non-Nuclear Energy to Fill in the Black Hole Mass Gap

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Nuclear astrophysics
• Expectation for the MeV Gamma-Ray Emission from Pair-Instability Supernovae