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Exploding stars from first principles: MAGnetars as engines of hypernovae and gamma-ray BURSTs

Objective

The birth of a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field, called a magnetar, has emerged as a promising scenario to power a variety of outstanding explosive events. This includes gamma-ray bursts, among the most luminous events observed up to high redshift and therefore useful as cosmological probes, but also supernovae with extreme kinetic energies called hypernovae and other classes of super-luminous supernovae. Simple phenomenological models, where the magnetar rotation period and magnetic field are adjusted, can explain many of these observations but lack a sound theoretical basis. The goal of this proposal is to develop an ab initio description of magnetar powered explosions in order to delineate the role they play for the production of gamma-ray bursts and super-luminous supernovae. This is urgently needed to interpret the growing diversity of explosions observed with ongoing transient surveys (iPTF, CRTS, Pan-STARRS) and in the perspective of future programs of observations such as SVOM and LSST. By using state-of-the-art numerical simulations, the following outstanding questions will be addressed:
1) What is the origin of the gigantic magnetic field observed in magnetars? The physics of the magnetic field amplification in a fast-rotating nascent neutron star will be investigated thoroughly from first principles. By developing the first global protoneutron star simulations of this amplification process, the magnetic field strength and geometry will be determined for varying rotation rates.
2) What variety of explosion paths can be explained by the birth of fast-rotating magnetars? Numerical simulations of the launch of a hypernova explosion and a relativistic GRB jet will provide the first self-consistent description of both events from a millisecond magnetar. Furthermore, the new understanding of magnetic field amplification will be used to improve the realism of these simulations.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-STG - Starting Grant

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2016-STG

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Host institution

COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 500 000,00
Address
RUE LEBLANC 25
75015 PARIS 15
France

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Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 500 000,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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