skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Pair-instability supernovae via collision runaway in young dense star clusters: PISNe via collision runaway

Abstract

Stars with helium cores between ~64 and 133 M are theoretically predicted to die as pair-instability supernovae. This requires very massive progenitors, which are theoretically prohibited for Pop II/I stars within the Galactic stellar mass limit due to mass-loss via line-driven winds. However, the runaway collision of stars in a dense, young star cluster could create a merged star with sufficient mass to end its life as a pair-instability supernova, even with enhanced mass-loss at non-zero metallicity. We show that the predicted rate from this mechanism is consistent with the inferred volumetric rate of roughly ~2 × 10-9 Mpc-3 yr-1 of the two observed pair-instability supernovae, SN 2007bi and PTF 10nmn, neither of which has metal-free host galaxies. Contrary to prior literature, only pair-instability supernovae at low redshifts $z < 2$ will be observable with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. We estimate that the telescope will observe ~102 such events per year that originate from the collisional runaway mergers in clusters.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1564900
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231; FC02-06ER41438
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 423; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Astronomy & Astrophysics; supernovae: general; galaxies: star clusters: general

Citation Formats

Pan, Tony, Loeb, Abraham, and Kasen, Daniel. Pair-instability supernovae via collision runaway in young dense star clusters: PISNe via collision runaway. United States: N. p., 2012. Web. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21030.x.
Pan, Tony, Loeb, Abraham, & Kasen, Daniel. Pair-instability supernovae via collision runaway in young dense star clusters: PISNe via collision runaway. United States. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21030.x
Pan, Tony, Loeb, Abraham, and Kasen, Daniel. 2012. "Pair-instability supernovae via collision runaway in young dense star clusters: PISNe via collision runaway". United States. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21030.x. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1564900.
@article{osti_1564900,
title = {Pair-instability supernovae via collision runaway in young dense star clusters: PISNe via collision runaway},
author = {Pan, Tony and Loeb, Abraham and Kasen, Daniel},
abstractNote = {Stars with helium cores between ~64 and 133 M⊙ are theoretically predicted to die as pair-instability supernovae. This requires very massive progenitors, which are theoretically prohibited for Pop II/I stars within the Galactic stellar mass limit due to mass-loss via line-driven winds. However, the runaway collision of stars in a dense, young star cluster could create a merged star with sufficient mass to end its life as a pair-instability supernova, even with enhanced mass-loss at non-zero metallicity. We show that the predicted rate from this mechanism is consistent with the inferred volumetric rate of roughly ~2 × 10-9 Mpc-3 yr-1 of the two observed pair-instability supernovae, SN 2007bi and PTF 10nmn, neither of which has metal-free host galaxies. Contrary to prior literature, only pair-instability supernovae at low redshifts $z < 2$ will be observable with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. We estimate that the telescope will observe ~102 such events per year that originate from the collisional runaway mergers in clusters.},
doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21030.x},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1564900}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
issn = {0035-8711},
number = 3,
volume = 423,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jun 19 00:00:00 EDT 2012},
month = {Tue Jun 19 00:00:00 EDT 2012}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 34 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

The Evolution of Very Massive Stars
journal, April 2007


The Galaxy Luminosity Function and Luminosity Density at Redshift z = 0.1
journal, August 2003


The First Stars
journal, September 2004


The formation of the first low-mass stars from gas with low carbon and oxygen abundances
journal, October 2003


A Very Large Array 3.6 Centimeter Continuum Survey of Galactic Wolf-Rayet Stars
journal, May 2004


Pan-STARRS1 DISCOVERY OF TWO ULTRALUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE AT z ≈ 0.9
journal, November 2011


The R136 star cluster hosts several stars whose individual masses greatly exceed the accepted 150 M⊙ stellar mass limit: Very massive stars in R136 and NGC 3603
journal, July 2010


Mass segregation in young compact clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud — III. Implications for the initial mass function
journal, September 2002


An upper limit to the masses of stars
journal, March 2005


Massive Star Formation in a Gravitationally Lensed H ii Galaxy at z = 3.357
journal, October 2003


Runaway collisions in young star clusters - II. Numerical results
journal, May 2006


A PILOT SEARCH FOR POPULATION III SUPERNOVA CANDIDATES IN THE SPITZER /IRAC DARK FIELD
journal, May 2009


Metal Absorption Lines as Probes of the Intergalactic Medium Prior to the Reionization Epoch
journal, May 2003


Supernova 2007bi as a pair-instability explosion
journal, December 2009


Observational evidence for a truncation of the star cluster initial mass function at the high mass end
journal, January 2006


The evolution of runaway stellar collision products
journal, February 2009


Formation of Massive Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters. I. Mass Segregation and Core Collapse
journal, April 2004


An investigation of the luminosity-metallicity relation for a large sample of low-metallicity emission-line galaxies
journal, August 2009


The Nucleosynthetic Signature of Population III
journal, March 2002


Supernova Light Curves Powered by Young Magnetars
journal, June 2010


Pair Instability Supernovae: Light Curves, Spectra, and Shock Breakout
journal, June 2011


Uncovering Extremely Metal-Poor Stars in the Milky Way's Ultrafaint Dwarf Spheroidal Satellite Galaxies
journal, September 2008


Pair creation supernovae at low and high redshift
journal, October 2007


The structure and environment of young stellar clusters in spiral galaxies
journal, February 2004


The mass function of young star clusters in spiral galaxies
journal, December 2008


Super Star Cluster Velocity Dispersions and Virial Masses in the M82 Nuclear Starburst
journal, July 2007


The formation of black hole low-mass X-ray binaries: Through case B or case C mass transfer?
journal, September 2001


The Runaway Growth of Intermediate‐Mass Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters
journal, September 2002


A runaway collision in a young star cluster as the origin of the brightest supernova
journal, November 2007


The Ecology of Star Clusters and Intermediate‐Mass Black Holes in the Galactic Bulge
journal, April 2006


Young Massive Star Clusters
journal, August 2010


Mass loss from hot massive stars
journal, December 2008


Hydrogen-poor superluminous stellar explosions
journal, June 2011


Ly$\mathsf{\alpha}$ emitters in the GOODS-S field: A powerful pure nebular SED with N IV] emission at
journal, February 2010


The Detectability of the First Stars and Their Cluster Enrichment Signatures
journal, May 2003


The Detectability of Pair‐Production Supernovae at z ≲ 6
journal, November 2005


An analytic expression for the luminosity function for galaxies.
journal, January 1976


ACS imaging of star clusters in M 51 : I. Identification and radius distribution
journal, May 2007


A MASSIVE PROGENITOR OF THE LUMINOUS TYPE IIn SUPERNOVA 2010jl
journal, April 2011


The Secrets of the Nearest Starburst Cluster. II. The Present-Day Mass Function in NGC 3603
journal, June 2006


Population III stars: hidden or disappeared?: Population III stars: hidden or disappeared?
journal, November 2007


Metal-Free gas Supply at the edge of Reionization: Late-Epoch Population iii star Formation
journal, July 2009


Stellar dynamics in young clusters: the formation of massive runaways and very massive runaway mergers
journal, September 2009


Mass-loss predictions for O and B stars as a function of metallicity
journal, April 2001


The relation between the most-massive star and its parental star cluster mass
journal, January 2010


Pulsational pair instability as an explanation for the most luminous supernovae
journal, November 2007


Two type Ic supernovae in low-metallicity, dwarf galaxies: diversity of explosions
journal, March 2010


On the evolution and fate of super-massive stars
journal, October 2007


The Mass Function of Young Star Clusters in the “Antennae” Galaxies
journal, December 1999


Works referencing / citing this record:

Explosion and nucleosynthesis of low-redshift pair-instability supernovae
journal, June 2014


CHEMICAL ENRICHMENT OF DAMPED Lyα SYSTEMS AS A DIRECT CONSTRAINT ON POPULATION III STAR FORMATION
journal, July 2013


Models and Simulations for the Photometric LSST Astronomical Time Series Classification Challenge (PLAsTiCC)
journal, July 2019


Radiative properties of pair-instability supernova explosions
journal, November 2012


Nebular spectra of pair-instability supernovae
journal, November 2015


Massive black hole binaries from runaway collisions: the impact of metallicity
journal, April 2016


A Superluminous Supernova in High Surface Density Molecular Gas within the Bar of a Metal-rich Galaxy
journal, August 2019


Models and simulations for the photometric lsst astronomical time series classification challenge (Plasticc)
text, January 2019


Explosion and nucleosynthesis of low redshift pair instability supernovae
text, January 2014


Nebular spectra of pair-instability supernovae
text, January 2015