Jet propagations, breakouts and photospheric emissions in collapsing massive progenitors of long duration gamma ray bursts

TL;DR

This study uses relativistic hydrodynamical simulations to explore jet propagation, shock breakouts, and photospheric emissions in collapsing massive stars, revealing how timing affects observable properties of long gamma-ray bursts.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the effects of jet injection timing on shock breakout and photospheric emissions in long GRB progenitors, highlighting differences from previous models.

Findings

Shock breakout timing influences jet propagation and emissions.

Photospheric luminosities are lower than previous estimates.

Observed temperatures are below the spectral peak predicted by the Yonetoku relation.

Abstract

We investigate by two-dimensional axisymmetric relativistic hydrodynamical simulations (1) jet propagations through an envelope of a rapidly rotating and collapsing massive star, which is supposed to be a progenitor of long duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs), (2) breakouts and subsequent expansions into stellar winds and (3) accompanying photospheric emissions. We find that if the envelope rotates uniformly almost at the mass shedding limit, its outer part stops contracting eventually when the centrifugal force becomes large enough. Then another shock wave is formed, propagates outwards and breaks out of the envelope into the stellar wind. Which breaks out earlier, the jet or the centrifugal bounce-induced shock, depends on the timing of jet injection. If the shock breakout occurs earlier owing to a later injection, the jet propagation and subsequent photospheric emissions are affected substantially. We pay particular attention to observational consequences of the difference in the timing of jet injection. We calculate optical depths to find the location of photospheres, extracting densities and temperatures at appropriate retarded times from the hydrodynamical data. We show that the luminosity and observed temperature of the photospheric emissions are both much lower than those reported in previous studies. Although luminosities are still high enough for GRBs, the observed temperature are lower than the energy at the spectral peak expected by the Yonetoku-relation. This may imply that energy exchanges between photons and matter are terminated deeper inside or some non-thermal processes are operating to boost photon energies.