Thermal Effects on Black Hole Formation in Failed Core-Collapse Supernovae

Evan O'Connor, Christian D. Ott

Published 2011-03-10Version 1

We investigate several aspects of black hole formation in failing core-collapse supernovae using 1D general-relativistic hydrodynamic simulations. We use the open-source code GR1D and incorporate into it nucleon-nucleon Bremsstrahlung, a crucial neutrino pair-production channel. We focus on how various thermal effects can influence the postbounce supernova evolution towards black hole formation. By performing simulations with and without nucleon-nucleon Bremsstrahlung, we investigate the sensitivity of black hole formation to thermal support in the protoneutron star. We also investigate delayed black hole formation by artificially driving explosions in an extreme model where the protoneutron star is initially thermally supported above the maximum baryonic cold neutron star mass but then collapses to a black hole after neutrino cooling removes sufficient thermal support.