We investigate the origin of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars starting from the recently discovered $\rm [Fe/H]<-7.1$ star SMSS J031300 (Keller et al. 2014). We show that the elemental abundances observed on the surface of SMSS J031300 can be well fit by the yields of faint, metal free, supernovae. Using properly calibrated faint supernova explosion models, we study, for the first time, the formation of dust grains in such carbon-rich, iron-poor supernova ejecta. Calculations are performed assuming both unmixed and uniformly mixed ejecta and taking into account the partial destruction by the supernova reverse shock. We find that, due to the paucity of refractory elements beside carbon, amorphous carbon is the only grain species to form, with carbon condensation efficiencies that range between (0.15-0.84), resulting in dust yields in the range (0.025-2.25)M$_{\odot}$. We follow the collapse and fragmentation of a star forming cloud enriched by the products of these faint supernova explosions and we explore the role played by fine structure line cooling and dust cooling. We show that even if grain growth during the collapse has a minor effect of the dust-to-gas ratio, due to C depletion into CO molecules at an early stage of the collapse, the formation of CEMP low-mass stars, such as SMSS J031300, could be triggered by dust cooling and fragmentation. A comparison between model predictions and observations of a sample of C-normal and C-rich metal-poor stars supports the idea that a single common pathway may be responsible for the formation of the first low-mass stars.
The circumstellar (CS) environment is key to understanding progenitors of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), as well as the origin of a peculiar extinction property toward SNe Ia for cosmological application. It has been suggested that multiple scatterings of SN photons by CS dust may explain the non-standard reddening law. In this paper, we examine the effect of re-emission of SN photons by CS dust in the infrared (IR) wavelength regime. This effect allows the observed IR light curves to be used as a constraint on the position/size and the amount of CS dust. The method was applied to observed near-infrared (NIR) SN Ia samples; meaningful upper limits on the CS dust mass were derived even under conservative assumptions. We thereby clarify a difficulty associated with the CS dust scattering model as a general explanation for the peculiar reddening law, while it may still apply to a sub-sample of highly reddened SNe Ia. For SNe Ia in general, the environment at the interstellar scale appears to be responsible for the non-standard extinction law. Furthermore, deeper limits can be obtained using the standard nature of SN Ia NIR light curves. In this application, an upper limit of Mdot ~10^{-8}-10^{-7} Msun/yr (for the wind velocity of ~10 km/s) is obtained for a mass loss rate from a progenitor up to ~0.01 pc, and Mdot ~10^{-7}-10^{-6} Msun/yr up to ~0.1 pc.
Because of the still present uncertainties on its rate, the 17O(p,α)14N is one of the most important reaction to be studied in order to get more information about the fate of 17O in different astrophysical scenarios. The preliminary study of the three‐body reaction 2H(17O,α14N)n is presented here as a first stage of the indirect study of this important 17O(p,α)14N reaction through the Trojan Horse Method (THM)
We investigate the evolution of dust that formed at Population III supernova (SN) explosions and its processing through the collisions with the reverse shocks resulting from the interaction of the SN ejecta with the ambient medium. In particular, we investigate the transport of the shocked dust within the SNR and its effect on the chemical composition, the size distribution, and the total mass of dust surviving in SNRs. We find that the evolution of the reverse shock, and hence its effect on the processing of the dust, depends on the thickness of the envelope retained by the progenitor star. Furthermore, the transport and survival of the dust grains depend on their initial radius, aini, and composition: for Type II SNRs expanding into the ISM with a density of nH,0 = 1 cm-3, small grains with aini ≲ 0.05 μm are completely destroyed by sputtering in the postshock flow, while grains with aini = 0.05-0.2 μm are trapped into the dense shell behind the forward shock. Very large grains of aini ≳ 0.2 μm are ejected into the ISM without decreasing their sizes significantly. We find that the total mass fraction of dust that is destroyed by the reverse shock ranges from 0.2 to 1.0, depending on the energy of the explosion and the density of the ambient ISM. The results of our calculations have significant impact on the abundance pattern of the second-generation stars that form in the dense shell of primordial SNRs.
Our group has developed a new picture of the structure of Cas A's explosion using 5–40 micron images and spectra from the Spitzer Space Telescope. In this picture, two roughly spherical shocks (forward and reverse) were initially set up by the outer layers of the exploding star. Deeper layers were ejected in a highly flattened structure with large protrusions in the plane of the flattening; some of these are visible as jets. As these aspherical deeper layers encounter the reverse shock at different locations, they become visible across the electromagnetic spectrum, with different nucleosynthesis layers visible in different directions. In the infrared, we see the gas lines of Ar, Ne, O, Si, S, and Fe at different locations, along with higher ionization states of the same elements visible in the optical and X‐ray parts of the spectrum. These different nucleosynthesis layers appear to have formed characteristic types of dust, the deep layers producing dust rich in silicates, while dust from the upper layers is dominated by Al2O3 and carbon grains. In addition, we see circumstellar dust heated by its encounter with the forward shock. We estimate the total dust mass currently visible that was formed in the explosion to be ∼0.02–0.05 M⊙. Rough extrapolations of these measurements to SNe in high redshift galaxies may be able to account for the lower limit of their observed dust masses. There is a large amount of gas, and presumably dust, that is currently not visible at any wavelength, including both the cooled post‐reverse‐shock ejecta and the material which has not yet encountered the reverse shock, where some select infrared emission is apparent.
A few particles of presolar Al2O3 grains with sizes above 0.5 mum are believed to have been produced in the ejecta of core-collapse supernovae (SNe). In order to clarify the formation condition of such large Al2O3 grains, we investigate the condensation of Al2O3 grains for wide ranges of the gas density and cooling rate. We first show that the average radius and condensation efficiency of newly formed Al2O3 grains are successfully described by a non-dimensional quantity "Lambda_on" defined as the ratio of the timescale with which the supersaturation ratio increases to the collision timescale of reactant gas species at dust formation. Then, we find that the formation of submicron-sized Al2O3 grains requires at least ten times higher gas densities than those presented by one-dimensional SN models. This indicates that presolar Al2O3 grains identified as a SN origin might be formed in dense gas clumps, allowing us to propose that the measured sizes of presolar grains can be a powerful tool to constrain the physical conditions in which they formed. We also briefly discuss the survival of newly formed Al2O3 grains against the destruction in the shocked gas within the SN remnants.
Abstract To investigate the impact of matter mixing on the formation of molecules in the ejecta of SN 1987A, time-dependent rate equations for chemical reactions are solved for one-zone and one-dimensional (1D) ejecta models of SN 1987A. The latter models are based on the 1D profiles obtained by angle-averaging of the three-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamical models, which effectively reflect the 3D matter mixing; the impact is demonstrated, for the first time, based on 3D hydrodynamical models. The distributions of initial seed atoms and radioactive 56 Ni influenced by the mixing could affect the formation of molecules. By comparing the calculations for spherical cases and for several specified directions in the bipolar-like explosions in the 3D hydrodynamical models, the impact is discussed. The decay of 56 Ni, practically 56 Co at later phases, could heat the gas and delay the molecule formation. Additionally, Compton electrons produced by the decay could ionize atoms and molecules and could destroy molecules. Several chemical reactions involved with ions such as H + and He + could also destroy molecules. The mixing of 56 Ni plays a nonnegligible role in both the formation and destruction of molecules through the processes above. The destructive processes of carbon monoxide and silicon monoxide due to the decay of 56 Ni generally reduce the amounts. However, if the molecule formation is sufficiently delayed under a certain condition, the decay of 56 Ni could locally increase the amounts through a sequence of reactions.
We report (1) the current status of neutrino parameters and (2) our recent work on implications of particle's coherence, which are weakly related each others. In the first part, current status of the neutrino parameters obtained from oscillation experiments and their prospects are briefly reviewed. From various oscillation experiments, existence of three mass scales have been confirmed. One value of the difference of mass squared is around 10−3eV2 and another is around 10−5eV2. Although mixing angles are partly found, one important angle, θ13 is left unknown.In the second part, implications of coherence length of particles in the scattering of ultra‐high energy cosmic rays (UHCR) with cosmic background radiations (CBR) is discussed. Although coherence length is regarded usually irrelevant to observations, its role is important in several situations of recent experiments which include that of the ultra‐high energy charged particles. Here we discuss the scattering of UHCR with CBR.
Core--collapsed supernovae (CCSNe) have been considered to be one of sources of dust in the universe. What kind and how much mass of dust are formed in the ejecta and are injected into the interstellar medium (ISM) depend on the type of CCSNe, through the difference in the thickness (mass) of outer envelope. In this review, after summarizing the existing results of observations on dust formation in CCSNe, we investigate formation of dust in the ejecta and its evolution in the supernova remnants (SNRs) of Type II--P and Type IIb SNe. Then, the time evolution of thermal emission from dust in the SNR of Type IIb SN is demonstrated and compared with the observation of Cas A. We find that the total dust mass formed in the ejecta does not so much depend on the type; $\sim 0.3-0.7 M_{\odot}$ in Type II--P SNe and $\sim 0.13 M_{\odot}$ in Type IIb SN. However the size of dust sensitively depends on the type, being affected by the difference in the gas density in the ejecta: the dust mass is dominated by grains with radii larger than 0.03 $μ$m in Type II-P, and less than 0.006 $μ$m in Type IIb, which decides the fate of dust in the SNR. The surviving dust mass is $\sim 0.04-0.2 M_{\odot}$ in the SNRs of Type II--P SNe for the ambient hydrogen density of $n_{\rm H}=10.0-1.0$ cm$^{-3}$, while almost all dust grains are destroyed in the SNR of Type IIb. The spectral energy distribution (SED) of thermal emission from dust in SNR well reflects the evolution of dust grains in SNR through erosion by sputtering and stochastic heating. The observed SED of Cas A SNR is reasonably reproduced by the model of dust formation and evolution for Type IIb SN.
