Neutrino Flavor Conversion Shapes the Rate of Failed Core-collapse Supernovae

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that neutrino flavor conversion significantly influences the outcomes of stellar collapse, affecting the distribution of neutron stars and black holes, and helps resolve existing astrophysical discrepancies.

Contribution

It introduces a schematic treatment of neutrino flavor conversion into stellar collapse simulations, revealing its crucial role in determining remnant types and masses.

Findings

Flavor transformation alters the explodability of stars in the 16-30 M_sun range.

It modifies the predicted distribution of neutron star and black hole masses.

The results help address the supernova rate and low-mass neutron star distribution problems.

Abstract

The relative rate of neutron stars and black holes produced by the collapse of massive stars is highly uncertain. We simulate the stellar collapse of $195$ progenitors with masses between $9\, M_\odot$ and $120\, M_\odot$, incorporating a schematic treatment of neutrino flavor conversion. We find that flavor transformation reshapes the explodability of massive stars-especially in the $16$-$30\, M_\odot$ mass range-and modifies the compact remnant mass distribution. Our findings identify neutrino flavor conversion as a fundamental ingredient in predicting neutron star and black hole populations, while naturally easing the red-supergiant and the supernova-rate problems, as well as reconciling theoretical expectations with the low-mass tail of the observed neutron star mass distribution.