Related papers: Gamma-Ray Bursts from tidally spun-up Wolf-Rayet s…
We suggest that the collapsing core of a massive rotating star may fragment to produce two or more compact objects. Their coalescence under gravitational radiation gives the resulting black hole or neutron star a significant kick velocity,…
As massive stars evolve, their winds change. This causes a series of hydrodynamical interactions in the surrounding medium. Whenever a fast wind follows a slow wind phase, the fast wind sweeps up the slow wind in a shell, which can be…
Present knowledge indicates that gamma-ray bursts are linked with massive stars. They will become invaluable probes of the early universe and galaxy formation. In the future, it will be possible to use gamma-ray bursts for two purposes: 1)…
The observational diversity of ``gamma-ray bursts'' (GRBs) has been increasing, and the natural inclination is a proliferation of models. We explore the possibility that at least part of this diversity is a consequence of a single basic…
High-mass binaries hosting young pulsars can be powerful gamma-ray emitters. The stellar wind of the massive star in the system is expected to be clumpy. Since the high-energy emission comes from the pulsar-star wind interaction, the…
Because most massive stars have been or will be affected by a companion during the course of their evolution, we cannot afford to neglect binaries when discussing the progenitors of supernovae and GRBs. Analyzing linear polarization in the…
Massive star feedback affects the evolution of galaxies, where the most massive stars may have the largest impact. The majority of massive stars are born as members of close binary systems. Here, we investigate detailed evolutionary models…
The recent discovery of a gravitational wave from the merging of two black holes of about 30 solar masses each challenges our incomplete understanding of massive stars and their evolution. Critical ingredients comprise mass-loss, rotation,…
A diverse range of phenomena is possible when a black hole experiences very rapid accretion from a disk due to the incomplete explosion of a massive presupernova star endowed with rotation. In the most extreme case, the outgoing shock fails…
New two- and three-dimensional calculations are presented of relativistic jet propagation and break out in massive Wolf-Rayet stars. Such jets are thought responsible for gamma-ray bursts. As it erupts, the jet is surrounded by a cocoon of…
We study the effect of wind anisotropies on the stellar evolution leading to collapsars. Rotating models of a 60 M$_\odot$ star with $\Omega/\Omega_{\rm crit}=0.75$ on the ZAMS, accounting for shellular rotation and a magnetic field, with…
The chief distinction between ordinary supernovae and long-soft gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is the degree of differential rotation in the inner several solar masses when a massive star dies, and GRBs are rare mainly because of the difficulty…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are luminous and violent phenomena in the universe. Traditionally, long GRBs are expected to be produced by the collapse of massive stars and associated with supernovae. However, some low-redshift long GRBs have no…
The currently accepted model for gamma-ray burst phenomena involves the violent formation of a rapidly rotating solar mass black hole. Gravitational waves should be associated with the black-hole formation, and their detection would permit…
We present a rapid binary evolution algorithm that enables modelling of even the most complex binary systems. In addition to all aspects of single star evolution, features such as mass transfer, mass accretion, common-envelope evolution,…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow observations have allowed us to significantly constrain the engines producing these energetic explosions. Te redshift and position information provided by these afterglows have already allowed us to limit the…
This paper deals with the application of the creep tide theory (Ferraz-Mello, Cel. Mech. Dyn. Astron. vol. 116, 109, 2013) to the study of the rotation of stars hosting massive close-in planets. The stars have nearly the same tidal…
WR 20a is the most massive close-in binary known in our Galaxy. It is composed of two $\approx$80 M$_\odot$ Wolf-Rayet stars with a short period of $\approx$3.7 days in the open cluster Westerlund 2. As such, WR 20a presents us with a…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are powerful probes of the high-redshift universe. However, the proportion of collapsar GRBs among long GRBs and their event rate relative to the star formation rate (SFR) remain contentious issues. We assume that…
Recent observations of Wolf-Rayet (WR) binaries WR151 and WR155 infer that their stellar winds are asymmetric. We show that such asymmetries can alter the stellar-wind bubble structure, bringing the wind-termination shock closer to the WR…