Beyond Photodisintegration: Exploring the Formation of Black Holes in Supernovae

[Drakkith]

Hey all. I just read about Photodisintegration leading to a supernova in stars above 250 solar masses and I thought it was pretty cool. Apparently the gamma ray photons get so energetic, they start to get absorbed, which excites the nucleus and leads to an ejection of a proton or a neutron. When this happens on a large scale, it leads to a runaway loss of energy from the core since the absorbed gamma rays no longer provide outward radiation pressure, which helps hold up the rest of the star, and the core starts to collapse into a black hole.

Just wondering what people think about this, and if there are any further phenomena past this that result in a black hole. I've read about pair production supernova as well, which doesn't leave a black hole behind since it results in a runaway nuclear reaction, destroying the star, along with the standard type 1 and 2 supernovas.

 

[Chronos]

It is possible black holes cannot form directly from core collapse events. See
http://www.space.com/8970-massive-mega-star-challenges-black-hole-theories.html
Mergers, however, are definitely in play.

 

[ibysaiyan]

Hey all. I just read about Photodisintegration leading to a supernova in stars above 250 solar masses and I thought it was pretty cool. Apparently the gamma ray photons get so energetic, they start to get absorbed, which excites the nucleus and leads to an ejection of a proton or a neutron. When this happens on a large scale, it leads to a runaway loss of energy from the core since the absorbed gamma rays no longer provide outward radiation pressure, which helps hold up the rest of the star, and the core starts to collapse into a black hole.

Just wondering what people think about this, and if there are any further phenomena past this that result in a black hole. I've read about pair production supernova as well, which doesn't leave a black hole behind since it results in a runaway nuclear reaction, destroying the star, along with the standard type 1 and 2 supernovas.

As far as the black hole formation goes around you have the usual transition of a neutron star to a black hole( Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit),formation of black hole by accretion induced collapse hypothesis(binary system consisting of oxygen-magnesium white dwarf and a red giant star) or a hypernovae(collapsar) in which if the star is over x50 solar masses then there is a direct transition into a black hole.EDIT:Thanks for the link Chonos! that's new to me.