Erratum: On the existence of a luminosity threshold of GRB jets in massive stars

Which physical parameters can be inferred from the emission variability of relativistic jets?

We present results of a detailed numerical study and theoretical analysis of the dynamics of internal shocks in relativistic jets and the non-thermal flares associated with these shocks. In our model internal shocks result from collisions of density inhomogeneities (shells) in relativistic jet flows. We find that the merged shell resulting from the inelastic collision of shells has a complicated internal structure due to the non-linear dynamics of the interaction. Furthermore, the instantaneous efficiency for converting kinetic energy into thermal energy is found to be almost twice as high as theoretically expected during the period of significant emission. The Lorentz factors of the intern…

Termination of the magnetorotational instability via parasitic instabilities in core-collapse supernovae

The magnetorotational instability (MRI) can be a powerful mechanism amplifying the magnetic field in core-collapse supernovae. Whether initially weak magnetic fields can be amplified by this instability to dynamically relevant strengths is still a matter of debate. One of the main uncertainties concerns the process that terminates the growth of the instability. Parasitic instabilities of both Kelvin-Helmholtz and tearing-mode type have been suggested to play a crucial role in this process, disrupting MRI channel flows and quenching magnetic field amplification. We perform two-dimensional and three-dimensional sheering-disc simulations of a differentially rotating protoneutron star layer in …

3D MHD modeling of the expanding remnant of SN 1987A : role of magnetic field and non-thermal radio emission

Aims. We investigate the role played by a pre-supernova (SN) ambient magnetic field on the dynamics of the expanding remnant of SN 1987A and the origin and evolution of the radio emission from the remnant, in particular, during the interaction of the blast wave with the nebula surrounding the SN. Methods. We model the evolution of SN 1987A from the breakout of the shock wave at the stellar surface to the expansion of its remnant through the surrounding nebula by 3D MHD simulations. The model considers the radiative cooling, the deviations from equilibrium of ionization, the deviation from temperature-equilibration between electrons and ions, and a plausible configuration of the pre-SN ambie…

Nucleosynthesis in magneto-rotational supernovae

Abstract We present the nucleosynthesis of magneto-rotational supernovae (MR-SNe) including neutrino-driven and magneto-rotational-driven ejecta based, for the first time, on two-dimensional simulations with accurate neutrino transport. The models analysed here have different rotation and magnetic fields, allowing us to explore the impact of these two key ingredients. The accurate neutrino transport of the simulations is critical to analyse the slightly neutron rich and proton rich ejecta that are similar to the, also neutrino-driven, ejecta in standard supernovae. In the model with strong magnetic field, the r-process produces heavy elements up to the third r-process peak (A ∼ 195), in agr…

On the existence of a luminosity threshold of GRB jets in massive stars

Motivated by the many associations of $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) with energetic supernova (SN) explosions, we study the propagation of relativistic jets within the progenitor star in which a SN shock wave may be launched briefly before the jets start to propagate. Based on analytic considerations and verified with an extensive set of 2D axisymmetric relativistic hydrodynamic simulations, we have estimated a threshold intrinsic jet luminosity, $L_{\rm j}^{\rm thr}$, for successfully launching a jet. This threshold depends on the structure of the progenitor and, thus, it is sensible to its mass and to its metallicity. For a prototype host of cosmological long GRBs, a low-metallicity star of 3…

Hydrodynamical and Emission Simulations of Relativistic Jets: Stability and Generation of Superluminal and Stationary Components

We present 2D hydrodynamical and emission simulations of the jet stabilityafter the introduction of strong perturbations on a relativistic jet. These simulations show that the interaction of a single strong perturbation with the underlying jet results in the formation of multiple conical shocks with very specific observational properties.

All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in the first Advanced LIGO observing run

Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-26T17:45:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-03-22 Australian Research Council Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India Department of Science and Technology, India Science AMP; Engineering Research Board (SERB), India Ministry of Human Resource Development, India Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigacion Vicepresidencia i Conselleria d'Innovacio, Recerca i Turisme Conselleria d'Educacio i Universitat del Govern de les Illes Balears Conselleria d'Educacio, Investigacio, Cultura i Esport de la Generalitat Valenciana National Science Centre of Poland Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Russian Foundation for Basic Rese…

Internal shocks in relativistic outflows: collisions of magnetized shells

(Abridged): We study the collision of magnetized irregularities (shells) in relativistic outflows in order to explain the origin of the generic phenomenology observed in the non-thermal emission of both blazars and gamma-ray bursts. We focus on the influence of the magnetic field on the collision dynamics, and we further investigate how the properties of the observed radiation depend on the strength of the initial magnetic field and on the initial internal energy density of the flow. The collisions of magnetized shells and the radiation resulting from these collisions are calculated using the 1D relativistic magnetohydrodynamics code MRGENESIS. The interaction of the shells with the externa…

Magnetorotational core collapse of possible GRB progenitors – II. Formation of protomagnetars and collapsars

We assess the variance of the post-collapse evolution remnants of compact, massive, low-metallicity stars, under small changes in the degrees of rotation and magnetic field of selected pre-supernova cores. These stellar models are commonly considered progenitors of long gamma-ray bursts. The fate of the proto-neutron star (PNS) formed after collapse, whose mass may continuously grow due to accretion, critically depends on the poloidal magnetic field strength at bounce. Should the poloidal magnetic field be sufficiently weak, the PNS collapses to a black hole (BH) within a few seconds. Models on this evolutionary track contain promising collapsar engines. Poloidal magnetic fields smooth over…

Striped Blandford/Znajek jets from advection of small-scale magnetic field

Black hole - accretion disc systems are the central engines of relativistic jets from stellar to galactic scales. We numerically quantify the unsteady outgoing Poynting flux through the horizon of a rapidly spinning black hole endowed with a rotating accretion disc. The disc supports small-scale, concentric, flux tubes with zero net magnetic flux. Our General Relativistic force-free electrodynamics simulations follow the accretion onto the black hole over several hundred dynamical timescales in 3D. For the case of counter-rotating accretion discs, the average process efficiency reaches up to $\left\langle\epsilon\right\rangle\approx 0.43$, compared to a stationary energy extraction by the B…

Axisymmetric simulations of magnetorotational core collapse: approximate inclusion of general relativistic effects

We continue our investigations of the magnetorotational collapse of stellar cores discussing simulations performed with a modified Newtonian gravitational potential that mimics general relativistic effects. The approximate TOV potential used in our simulations catches several features of fully relativistic simulations quite well. It is able to correctly reproduce the behavior of models which show a qualitative change both of the dynamics and the gravitational wave signal when switching from Newtonian to fully relativistic simulations. If this is not the case, the Newtonian and the approximate TOV models differ quantitatively. The collapse proceeds to higher densities with the approximate TO…

Stability analysis of relativistic jets from collapsars and its implications on the short-term variability of gamma-ray bursts

We consider the transverse structure and stability properties of relativistic jets formed in the course of the collapse of a massive progenitor. Our numerical simulations show the presence of a strong shear in the bulk velocity of such jets. This shear can be responsible for a very rapid shear--driven instability that arises for any velocity profile. This conclusion has been confirmed both by numerical simulations and theoretical analysis. The instability leads to rapid fluctuations of the main hydrodynamical parameters (density, pressure, Lorentz factor, etc.). However, the perturbations of the density are effectively decoupled from those of the pressure because the beam of the jet is radi…

Relativistic MHD simulations of extragalactic jets

We have performed a comprehensive parameter study of the morphology and dynamics of axisymmetric, magnetized, relativistic jets by means of numerical simulations. The simulations have been performed with an upgraded version of the GENESIS code which is based on a second-order accurate finite volume method involving an approximate Riemann solver suitable for relativistic ideal magnetohydrodynamic flows, and a method of lines. Starting from pure hydrodynamic models we consider the effect of a magnetic field of increasing strength (up to β ≡ |b|2/2p ≈ 3.3 times the equipartition value) and different topology (purely toroidal or poloidal). We computed several series of models investigating the …

The advanced Virgo longitudinal control system for the O2 observing run

Following a successful period of data-taking between 2006 and 2011, the Virgo gravitational-wave detector was taken offline for a major upgrade. The changes made to the instrument significantly increased the complexity of the control systems and meant that an extended period of commissioning was required to reach a sensitivity appropriate for science data-taking. This commissioning period was completed in July of 2017 and the second-generation Advanced Virgo detector went on to join the Advanced LIGO detectors in the O2 science run in August of the same year. The upgraded detector was approximately twice as sensitive to binary neutron star mergers as the first-generation instrument. During …

How to form a millisecond magnetar? Magnetic field amplification in protoneutron stars

Extremely strong magnetic fields of the order of $10^{15}\,{\rm G}$ are required to explain the properties of magnetars, the most magnetic neutron stars. Such a strong magnetic field is expected to play an important role for the dynamics of core-collapse supernovae, and in the presence of rapid rotation may power superluminous supernovae and hypernovae associated to long gamma-ray bursts. The origin of these strong magnetic fields remains, however, obscure and most likely requires an amplification over many orders of magnitude in the protoneutron star. One of the most promising agents is the magnetorotational instability (MRI), which can in principle amplify exponentially fast a weak initia…

Magnetorotational core collapse of possible GRB progenitors. III. Three-dimensional models

We explore the influence of non-axisymmetric modes on the dynamics of the collapsed core of rotating, magnetized high-mass stars in three-dimensional simulations of a rapidly rotating star with an initial mass of $M_{ZAMS}$ = 35 solar masses endowed with four different pre-collapse configurations of the magnetic field, ranging from moderate to very strong field strength and including the field predicted by the stellar evolution model. The model with the weakest magnetic field achieves shock revival due to neutrino heating in a gain layer characterized by a large-scale, hydrodynamic m = 1 spiral mode. Later on, the growing magnetic field of the proto-neutron star launches weak outflows into …

Magnetorotational core collapse of possible GRB progenitors – I. Explosion mechanisms

We investigate the explosion of stars with zero-age main-sequence masses between 20 and 35 solar masses and varying degrees of rotation and magnetic fields including ones commonly considered progenitors of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The simulations, combining special relativistic magnetohydrodynamics, a general relativistic approximate gravitational potential, and two-moment neutrino transport, demonstrate the viability of different scenarios for the post-bounce evolution. Having formed a highly massive proto-neutron star (PNS), several models launch successful explosions, either by the standard supernova mechanism based on neutrino heating and hydrodynamic instabilities or by magnetorotation…

Semi-global simulations of the magneto-rotational instability in core collapse supernovae

Possible effects of magnetic fields in core collapse supernovae rely on an efficient amplification of the weak pre-collapse fields. It has been suggested that the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) leads to rapid field growth. Although MRI studies exist for accretion discs, the application of their results to core collapse supernovae is inhibited as the physics of supernova cores is substantially different from that of accretion discs. We address the problem of growth and saturation of the MRI by means of semi-global simulations, which combine elements of global and local simulations by taking the presence of global background gradients into account and using a local computational grid. W…

Searching for differences in Swift's intermediate GRBs

Gamma-ray bursts are usually classified through their high-energy emission into short-duration and long-duration bursts, which presumably reflect two different types of progenitors. However, it has been shown on statistical grounds that a third, intermediate population is needed in this classification scheme, although an extensive study of the properties of this class has so far not been done. The large amount of follow-up studies generated during the Swift era allows us to have a suficient sample to attempt a study of this third population through the properties of their prompt emission and their afterglows. Our study is focused on a sample of GRBs observed by Swift during its first four y…

Evolution of the surface magnetic field of rotating proto-neutron stars

We study the evolution of the field on the surface of proto-neutron stars in the immediate aftermath of stellar core collapse by analyzing the results of self-consistent, axisymmetric simulations of the cores of rapidly rotating high-mass stars. To this end, we compare the field topology and the angular spectra of the poloidal and toroidal field components over a time of about one seconds for cores. Both components are characterized by a complex geometry with high power at intermediate angular scales. The structure is mostly the result of the accretion of magnetic flux embedded in the matter falling through the turbulent post-shock layer onto the PNS. Our results may help to guide further s…

Numerical viscosity in simulations of the two-dimensional Kelvin-Helmholtz instability

The Kelvin-Helmholtz instability serves as a simple, well-defined setup for assessing the accuracy of different numerical methods for solving the equations of hydrodynamics. We use it to extend our previous analysis of the convergence and the numerical dissipation in models of the propagation of waves and in the tearing-mode instability in magnetohydrodynamic models. To this end, we perform two-dimensional simulations with and without explicit physical viscosity at different resolutions. A comparison of the growth of the modes excited by our initial perturbations allows us to estimate the effective numerical viscosity of two spatial reconstruction schemes (fifth-order monotonicity preservin…

The impact of non-dipolar magnetic fields in core-collapse supernovae

The magnetic field is believed to play an important role in at least some core-collapse supernovae if its magnitude reaches $10^{15}\,\rm{G}$, which is a typical value for a magnetar. In the presence of fast rotation, such a strong magnetic field can drive powerful jet-like explosions if it has the large-scale coherence of a dipole. The topology of the magnetic field is, however, probably much more complex with strong multipolar and small-scale components and the consequences for the explosion are so far unclear. We investigate the effects of the magnetic field topology on the dynamics of core-collapse supernovae and the properties of forming proto-neutron star (PNS) by comparing pre-collap…

Does the plasma composition affect the long term evolution of relativistic jets?

We study the influence of the matter content of extragalactic jets on their morphology, dynamics and emission properties. For this purpose we consider jets of extremely different compositions including pure leptonic and baryonic plasmas. Our work is based on two-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of the long-term evolution of powerful extragalactic jets propagating into a homogeneous environment. The equation of state used in the simulations accounts for an arbitrary mixture of electrons, protons and electron-positron pairs. Using the hydrodynamic models we have also computed synthetic radio maps and the thermal Bremsstrahlung X-ray emission from their cavities. Although ther…

Simulations of Precessing Jets

We report on the results of a three-dimensional, relativistic, hydrodynamical simulation of a precessing jet through which a compact blob of matter is set to propagate. We conclude that the morphology of superluminal sources is the result of a complex combination of phase motions, viewing angle selection effects, and non-linear interactions between perturbations and the underlying jet and/or external medium.

Detection of the high z GRB 080913 and its implications on progenitors and energy extraction mechanisms*

We present multiwavelength observations of one of the most distant gamma-ray bursts detected so far, GRB080913. Based on these observations, we consider whether it could be classified as a short-duration GRB and discuss the implications for the progenitor nature and energy extraction mechanisms. Methods. Multiwavelength X-ray, near IR and millimetre observations were made between 20.7 h and ∼16.8 days after the event. Results. Whereas a very faint afterglow was seen at the 3.5m CAHA telescope in the nIR, the X-ray afterglow was clearly detected in both Swift and XMM-Newton observations. An upper limit is reported in the mm range. We have modeled the data assuming a collimated θ0 3◦ blast wa…