Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Possible Pair-Instability Supernovae At Solar Motallicity From Magnetic Stellar Progenitors, Cyril Georgy, Georges Meynet, Sylvia Ekström, Gregg A. Wade, Véronique Petit, Zsolt Keszthelyi, Raphael Hirschi

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

Near-solar metallicity (and low-redshift) pair-instability supernova (PISN) candidates challenge stellar evolution models. Indeed, at such a metallicity, even an initially very massive star generally loses so much mass by stellar winds that it will avoid the electron-positron pair-creation instability. We use recent results showing that a magnetic field at the surface of a massive star can significantly reduce its effective mass-loss rate to compute magnetic models of very massive stars (VMSs) at solar metallicity and explore the possibility that such stars end as PISNe. We implement the quenching of the mass loss produced by a surface dipolar magnetic field into …