FAILED SUPERNOVAE EXPLAIN THE COMPACT REMNANT MASS FUNCTION

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 785; no. 1; pp. 1 - 6
• Main Author: Kochanek, C S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 10-04-2014
• Subjects: Astronomical models; ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; BLACK HOLES; Constraining; DENSITY; DIFFUSION BARRIERS; EXPLOSIONS; FORECASTING; HELIUM; HYDROGEN; MASS TRANSFER; Mathematical models; NEUTRON STARS; Progenitors (astrophysics); SIMULATION; STAR EVOLUTION; STELLAR WINDS; SUPERNOVAE; TRANSIENTS
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/785/1/28

One explanation for the absence of higher mass red supergiants (16.5 M sub([middot in circle]) [lap] M [lap] 25 M sub([middot in circle])) as the progenitors of Type IIP supernovae (SNe) is that they die in failed SNe creating black holes. Simulations show that such failed SNe still eject their hydrogen envelopes in a weak transient, leaving a black hole with the mass of the star's helium core (5-8 M sub([middot in circle])). Here we show that this naturally explains the typical masses of observed black holes and the gap between neutron star and black hole masses without any fine-tuning of stellar mass loss, binary mass transfer, or the SN mechanism, beyond having it fail in a mass range where many progenitor models have density structures that make the explosions more likely to fail. There is no difficulty including this ~20% population of failed SNe in any accounting of SN types over the progenitor mass function. And, other than patience, there is no observational barrier to either detecting these black hole formation events or limiting their rates to be well below this prediction.