Relativistic Coulomb screening in pulsational pair instability supernovae

¹ Department of Physics, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA
e-mail: michael.famiano@wmich.edu
² National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan
³ Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics – Center for the Evolution of the Elements, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
⁴ Research Institute of Stellar Explosive Phenomena, Fukuoka University, 8-19-1 Nanakuma, Jonan-ku, Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka 814-0180, Japan
⁵ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
⁶ Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
⁷ School of Physics, Beihang University, 37 Xueyuan Road, Haidian-qu, Beijing 100083, PR China
⁸ Center for Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, 225 Nieuwland Science Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA

Received: 14 October 2021
Accepted: 6 December 2021

Abstract

Context. Pulsational pair-instability supernovae (PPISNe) and pair instability supernovae (PISNe) are the result of a thermonuclear runaway in the presence of a background electron-positron pair plasma. As such, their evolution and resultant black hole masses could possibly be affected by screening corrections due to the electron pair plasma.

Aims. The sensitivity of PISNe and PPISNe to relativistic weak screening has been explored.

Methods. In this paper a weak screening model that includes effects from relativistic pair production has been developed and applied at temperatures approaching and exceeding the threshold for pair production. This screening model replaces “classical” screening commonly used in astrophysics. Modifications to the weak screening electron Debye length were incorporated in a computationally tractable analytic form.

Results. In PPISNe the BH masses were found to increase somewhat at high temperatures, though this increase is small. The BH collapse is also found to occur at earlier times, and the pulsational morphology also changes. In addition to the resultant BH mass, the sensitivity to the screening model of the pulsational period, the pulse structure, the PPISN-to-PISN transition, and the shift in the BH mass gap has been analyzed. The dependence of the composition of the ejected mass was also examined.