Related papers: Pair-Instability Supernovae, Gravity Waves, and Ga…
New particles coupled to the Standard Model can equilibrate in stellar cores if they are sufficiently heavy and strongly coupled. In this work, we investigate the astrophysical consequences of such a scenario for massive stars by…
The origin of high-redshift quasars and their supermassive black hole engines is unclear. One promising solution is the collapse of a primordial supermassive star. Observational confirmation of this scenario may be challenging, but a…
We present a model for the formation of massive black holes ($\sim 1000 \msun$) due to stellar-dynamical processes in the first stellar clusters formed at early cosmic times ($z\sim10-20$). The high redshift black hole seeds form as a…
We present numerical simulations of primordial supernovae in cosmological minihalos at $z \sim$ 20. We consider Type II supernovae, hypernovae, and pair instability supernovae (PISN) in halos from 6.9 $\times$ 10$^5$ - 1.2 $\times$ 10$^7$…
Some high-mass stars likely end their lives in underluminous implosions that leave behind a black hole, known as failed supernovae (FSNe). However, neutrinos radiated during proto-neutron star formation generate a weak (Mach $\gtrsim 1$)…
A variety of stellar explosions powered by black hole accretion are discussed. All involve the failure of neutrino energy deposition to launch a strong supernova explosion. A key quantity which determines the type of high energy transient…
The first generation of stars was formed from primordial gas. Numerical simulations suggest that the first stars were predominantly very massive, with typical masses M > 100 Mo. These stars were responsible for the reionization of the…
A core-collapse supernova might produce large amplitude gravitational waves if, through the collapse process, the inner core can aquire enough rotational energy to become dynamically unstable. In this report I present the results of 3-D…
All recent numerical simulations agree that stars in the main sequence mass range of 9-40 solar masses do not produce a prompt hydrodynamic ejection of the outer layers after core collapse and bounce. Rather they suggest that stellar core…
We investigate the evolution, final fate, and nucleosynthetic yields of rotating and non-rotating very massive stars (VMS) of zero metallicity. First we address the issue of mass loss during hydrogen burning due to vibrational…
Supernova theory suggests that black holes of a stellar origin cannot attain masses in the range of 50-135 solar masses in isolation. We argue here that this mass gap is filled in by black holes that grow by gas accretion in dense stellar…
Immediately after they are born, neutron stars are characterized by an entropy per baryon of order unity and by the presence of trapped neutrinos. If the only hadrons in the star are nucleons, these effects slightly reduce the maximum mass…
We present 3D core-collapse supernova simulations of massive Pop-III progenitor stars at the transition to the pulsational pair instability regime. We simulate two progenitor models with initial masses of $85\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and…
The existence of supermassive black holes is supported by a growing body of observations. Supermassive black holes and their formation events are likely candidates for detection by proposed long-wavelength, space-based gravitational wave…
The core collapse of rapidly rotating massive ~10 Msun stars ("collapsars"), and resulting formation of hyper-accreting black holes, are a leading model for the central engines of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRB) and promising sources…
We study the growth rate of stars via stellar collisions in dense star clusters, calibrating our analytic calculations with direct N-body simulations of up to 65536 stars, performed on the GRAPE family of special-purpose computers. We find…
The very first stars in the Universe can be very massive, up to $10^3M_\odot$. If born in large numbers, such massive stars can have strong impact on the subsequent star formation, producing strong ionising radiation and contaminating the…
Interactions between massive stars in binaries are thought to be responsible for much of the observed diversity of supernovae. As surveys probe rarer populations of events, we should expect to see supernovae arising from increasingly…
The current generation of millimeter interferometers have revealed a population of compact (r <~ 0.1 pc), massive (M ~ 100 Msun) gas cores that are the likely progenitors of massive stars. I review models for the evolution of these objects…
The dynamical instability of new-born neutron stars is studied by evolving the linearized hydrodynamical equations. The neutron stars considered in this paper are those produced by the accretion induced collapse of rigidly rotating white…