Neutrino Driven Explosions aided by Axion Cooling in Multidimensional Simulations of Core-Collapse Supernovae

TL;DR

This paper investigates how QCD axion emission influences core-collapse supernova explosions using multidimensional simulations, revealing that axion cooling can accelerate explosions for certain axion parameter ranges.

Contribution

First multidimensional CCSN simulations incorporating QCD axion effects, demonstrating their impact on explosion dynamics and potential constraints on axion properties.

Findings

Axion emission affects shock behavior and explosion timing.

Strong axion cooling accelerates core contraction and enhances neutrino heating.

Impact on explosion occurs near current axion limit values from SN1987A.

Abstract

In this study, we present the first multidimensional core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) simulations including QCD axions in order to assess the impact on the CCSN explosion mechanism. We include axions in our simulations through the nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung emission channel and as a pure energy-sink term under the assumption that the axions free-stream after being emitted. We perform both spherically symmetric (1D) and axisymmetric (2D) simulations. In 1D, we utilize a parameterized heating scheme to achieve explosions, whereas in 2D we self-consistently realize explosions through the neutrino heating mechanism. Our 2D results for a $20 M_\odot$ progenitor show an impact of the axion emission on the shock behavior and the explosion time when considering values of the Peccei-Quinn energy scale $f_a \leq 2 \times 10^8$ GeV. The strong cooling due to the axion emission accelerates the contraction of the core and leads to more efficient neutrino heating and earlier explosions. For the axion emission formalism utilized, the values of $f_a$ that impact the explosion are close to, but in tension with current limits based on the neutrinos detected from SN1987A. However, given the non-linear behavior of the emission and the multidimensional nature of CCSNe, we suggest that a self-consistent, multidimensional approach to simulating CCSNe, including any late time accretion and cooling, is needed to fully explore the axion bounds from supernovae and the impact on the CCSN explosion mechanism.