Hot third family of compact stars and the possibility of core-collapse supernova explosions

TL;DR

This paper explores how a phase transition to quark matter can induce supernova explosions via a third family of compact stars, highlighting a novel thermal behavior in hot proto-compact stars.

Contribution

It identifies a new type of third family of compact stars that exists only in hot, early stages due to unique thermal properties caused by phase transitions.

Findings

Phase transition can trigger supernova explosions in models.

Third family of compact stars is prominent only at high temperatures.

Unusual thermal properties are linked to the phase transition behavior.

Abstract

A phase transition to quark matter can lead to interesting phenomenological consequences in core-collapse supernovae, e.g., triggering an explosion in spherically symmetric models. However, until now this explosion mechanism was only shown to be working for equations of state that are in contradiction with recent pulsar mass measurements. Here, we identify that this explosion mechanism is related to the existence of a third family of compact stars. For the equations of state investigated, the third family is only pronounced in the hot, early stages of the protocompact star and absent or negligibly small at zero temperature and thus represents a novel kind of third family. This interesting behavior is a result of unusual thermal properties induced by the phase transition, e.g., characterized by a decrease of temperature with increasing density for isentropes, and can be related to a negative slope of the phase transition line in the temperature-pressure phase diagram.