Neutrino-driven explosions of ultra-stripped type Ic supernovae generating binary neutron stars

TL;DR

This study models ultra-stripped supernovae through stellar evolution and hydrodynamics simulations, showing they can produce binary neutron stars with properties matching observed rapid, luminous transients.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation-based analysis of ultra-stripped supernova explosions and their role in forming binary neutron star systems.

Findings

All models successfully explode via neutrino heating.

Explosion energies are around 10^50 erg, consistent with observed transients.

Ultra-stripped SNe can produce low-mass neutron stars in binary systems.

Abstract

We study explosion characteristics of ultra-stripped supernovae (SNe), which are candidates of SNe generating binary neutron stars (NSs). As a first step, we perform stellar evolutionary simulations of bare carbon-oxygen cores of mass from 1.45 to 2.0 $M_\odot$ until the iron cores become unstable and start collapsing. We then perform axisymmetric hydrodynamics simulations with spectral neutrino transport using these stellar evolution outcomes as initial conditions. All models exhibit successful explosions driven by neutrino heating. The diagnostic explosion energy, ejecta mass, Ni mass, and NS mass are typically $\sim 10^{50}$ erg, $\sim 0.1 M_\odot$, $\sim 0.01M_\odot$, and $\approx 1.3 M_\odot$, which are compatible with observations of rapidly-evolving and luminous transient such as SN 2005ek. We also find that the ultra-stripped SN is a candidate for producing the secondary low-mass NS in the observed compact binary NSs like PSR J0737-3039.