We investigated r-process nucleosynthesis in magneto-rotational supernovae, based on a new explosion mechanism induced by the magneto-rotational instability (MRI). A series of axisymmetric magnetohydrodynamical simulations with detailed microphysics including neutrino heating is performed, numerically resolving the MRI. Neutrino-heating dominated explosions, enhanced by magnetic fields, showed mildly neutronrich ejecta producing nuclei up toà 130 (i.e., the weak r-process), while explosion models with stronger magnetic fields reproduce a solar-like r-process pattern. More commonly seen abundance patterns in our models are in between the weak and regular r-process, producing lighter and intermediate-mass nuclei. These intermediate r-processes exhibit a variety of abundance distributions, compatible with several abundance patterns in r-processenhanced metal-poor stars. The amount of Eu ejectain magnetically driven jets agrees with predicted values in the chemical evolution of early galaxies. In contrast, neutrino-heating dominated explosions have a significant amount of Fe ( Ni 56 ) and Zn, comparable to regular supernovae and hypernovae, respectively. These results indicate magneto-rotational supernovae can produce a wide range of heavy nuclei from iron-group to r-process elements, depending on the explosion dynamics.

We perform a series of two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the magnetorotational collapse of a supernova core. We employ a realistic equation of state and take into account electron capture and neutrino transport by the so-called leakage scheme. Recent stellar evolution calculations imply that the magnetic fields of the toroidal components are much stronger than the poloidal ones at the presupernova stage. In this study we systematically investigate the effects of the toroidal magnetic fields on the anisotropic neutrino radiation and convection. Our results show that the shapes of the shock wave and the neutrino spheres generally become more oblate for the models whose profiles of rotation and the magnetic field are shell type and become, in contrast, more prolate for the models whose profiles of rotation and the magnetic field are cylindrical than for the corresponding models without the magnetic fields. Furthermore, we find that magnetorotational instability induced by nonaxisymmetric perturbations is expected to develop within the prompt-shock timescale. Combined with the anisotropic neutrino radiation, which heats matter near the rotational axis preferentially, the growth of the instability may enhance the heating near the axis. This might suggest that magnetar formation is accompanied by a jetlike explosion.

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We perform two-dimensional numerical simulations on the core collapse of a massive star with strong magnetic fields and differential rotations using the numerical code ZEUS-2D. Changing field configurations and laws of differential rotation parametrically, we compute 14 models and investigate the effects of these parameters on the dynamics. In our models we do not solve the neutrino transport but instead employ a phenomenological parametric EOS that takes into account the neutrino emissions. As a result of the calculations, we find that the field configuration plays a significant role in the dynamics of the core if the initial magnetic field is large enough. Models with initially concentrated fields produce more energetic explosions and more prolate shock waves than the uniform field. Quadrupole-like fields produce a remarkably collimated and fast jet, which might be important for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The Lorentz forces exerted in the region where the plasma is less than unity are responsible for these dynamics. The pure toroidal field, on the other hand, does not lead to any explosion or matter ejection. This suggests that the presupernova models, in which toroidal fields are predominant are disadvantageous for the magnetorotation-induced supernova considered here. Models with initially weak magnetic fields do not lead to explosion or matter ejection, either. In these models magnetic fields play no role, as they do not grow on the timescale considered in this paper and the magnetic pressure could be comparable to the matter pressure. This is because the exponential field growth as expected in MRI is not seen in our models. The magnetic field is amplified mainly by field compression and field wrapping in our simulations.

The majority of massive stars are formed in binary systems. It is hence reasonable to expect that most core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) take place in binaries and the existence of a companion star may leave some imprints in observed features. Having this in mind, we have conducted two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the collisions of CCSNe ejecta with the companion star in an almostequal-mass (∼ 10M ) binary to find out possible consequences of such events. In particular we pay attention to the amount of mass removed and its dependence on the binary separation. In contrast to the previous surmise, we find that the companion mass is stripped not by momentum transfer but by shock heating. Up to 25% of the original mass can be removed for the closest separations and the removed mass decreases as M ub ∝ a −4.3 with the binary separation a. By performing some experimental computations with artificially-modified densities of incident ejecta, we show that if the velocity of ejecta is fixed, the density of incident ejecta is the single important parameter that actually determines the removed mass as M ub ∝ ρ 1.4 ej . On the other hand, another set of simulations with modified velocities of incident ejecta demonstrate that the strength of the forward shock, which heats up the stellar material and causes the mass loss of the companion star, is actually the key parameter for the removed mass.

We performed the first numerical simulations of magnetorotational instability from a sub-magnetarclass seed magnetic field in core collapse supernovae. As a result of axisymmetric ideal MHD simulations, we found that the magnetic field is greatly amplified to magnetar-class strength. In saturation phase, a substantial part of the core is dominated by turbulence, and the magnetic field possesses dominant large scale components, comparable to the size of the proto-neutron star. A pattern of coherent chanel flows, which generally appears during exponential growth phase in previous local simulations, is not observed in our global simulations. While the approximate convergence in the exponential growth rate is attained by increasing spatial resolution, that of the saturation magnetic field is not achieved due to still large numerical diffusion. Although the effect of magnetic field on the dynamics is found to be mild, a simulation with a high-enough resolution might result in a larger impact.

Both magnetic and nonmagnetic x-ray diffraction has been studied near the Fe K-edge of hematite ͑␣-Fe 2 O 3 ͒ and the Cr K-edge of eskolaite ͑Cr 2 O 3 ͒ and compared to the symmetry-based calculations. These crystals have identical atomic structures but different magnetic orderings. The observed "forbidden" 111 and 333 reflections in both crystals show a resonant peak only in the pre-edge energy region. In eskolaite, the azimuthal angle dependence of the resonant 111 and 333 reflections exhibits threefold symmetry, which is in good agreement with the calculated curves based on electric dipole-quadrupole and quadrupole-quadrupole scattering channels. This threefold symmetry is the first reliable evidence for antisymmetric terms in dipolequadrupole scattering and hence for local chirality of atoms in centrosymmetric crystals. In hematite, nonresonant and resonant scattering has been observed for the forbidden reflections. The azimuth dependence of the nonresonant intensity shows the twofold symmetry. From the azimuthal symmetry and temperature dependence of the nonresonant diffraction, it is revealed that the nonresonant intensity is due to magnetic scattering caused by the antiferromagnetic structure. The azimuth dependence of the 111 resonant peak in hematite shows almost threefold symmetry similar to eskolaite. On the other hand, the resonant 333 reflection in hematite shows complicated azimuth dependence, nearly mirror symmetry, at room temperature. As a result of least-squares analysis of the azimuth dependence and the low-temperature measurement, we conclude that the nonresonant magnetic scattering has a significant influence on the resonant electric scattering though its intensity is much smaller. Thus the interference between the magnetic and electric scatterings plays a very important role in hematite and opens new ways for studying additional details of the magnetic structure.

We investigated the impacts of magnetorotational instability (MRI) on the dynamics of weakly magnetized, rapidly rotating core-collapse by conducting high resolution MHD simulations in axisymmetry with simplified neutrino transfer. We found that an initially sub-magnetar class magnetic field is drastically amplified by MRI and substantially affects the dynamics thereafter. Although the magnetic pressure is not strong enough to eject matter, the amplified magnetic field efficiently transfers angular momentum from higher to lower latitudes, which causes the expansion of the heating region at low latitudes due to the extra centrifugal force. This then enhance the efficiency of neutrino heating and eventually leads to neutrino-driven explosion. This is a new scenario of core-collapse supernovae that has never been demonstrated by numerical simulations so far.