2004/12/01 by Chris L. Fryer, Alexander Heger · 5 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Angular momentum #Binary number #Binary star #Common envelope #Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution #Gamma-ray burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Hypernova #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Redshift #Stars #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/428379
published as Astrophys.J. 623 (2005) 302-313 · 29 pages including 12 figures, submitted to ApJ
arxiv created 2004/12/01 · openalex publication_date 2005/04/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The collapsar model, the now leading model for the engine behind gamma-ray bursts and hypernovae, requires that a star collapses to form a black hole surrounded by an accretion disk of high angular momentum material. The current best theoretical stellar models, however, do not retain enough angular momentum in the core of the star to make a centrifugally supported disk. In this paper, we present the first calculations of the helium star/helium star merger progenitors for the collapsar model. These progenitors invoke the merger of two helium cores during the common-envelope inspiral phase of a binary system. We find that in some cases, the merger can produce cores that are rotating 3-10 times faster than single stars. He star/He star gamma-ray burst progenitors have a very different redshift distribution than their single-star gamma-ray burst progenitors, and we discuss how gamma-ray burst observations can constrain these progenitors.