A full general relativistic neutrino radiation-hydrodynamics simulation of a collapsing very massive star and the formation of a black hole

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Letters 2018-06, Vol.477 (1), p.L80-L84
• Main Authors: Kuroda, Takami, Kotake, Kei, Takiwaki, Tomoya, Thielemann, Friedrich-Karl
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1745-3925; 1745-3933
• DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/sly059

Abstract We study the final fate of a very massive star by performing full general relativistic (GR), three-dimensional (3D) simulation with three-flavour multi-energy neutrino transport. Utilizing a 70 solar mass zero-metallicity progenitor, we self-consistently follow the radiation-hydrodynamics from the onset of gravitational core-collapse until the second collapse of the proto-neutron star (PNS), leading to black hole (BH) formation. Our results show that the BH formation occurs at a post-bounce time of Tpb ∼ 300 ms for the 70 M⊙ star. This is significantly earlier than those in the literature where lower mass progenitors were employed. At a few ∼10 ms before BH formation, we find that the stalled bounce shock is revived by intense neutrino heating from the very hot PNS, which is aided by violent convection behind the shock. In the context of 3D-GR core-collapse modelling with multi-energy neutrino transport, our numerical results present the first evidence to validate a fallback BH formation scenario of the 70 M⊙ star.