Evolution of a proto-neutron star with a nuclear many-body equation of state: Neutrino luminosity and gravitational wave frequencies

Understand

In a core-collapse supernova, a huge amount of energy is released in the Kelvin-Helmholtz phase subsequent to the explosion, when the proto-neutron star cools and deleptonizes as it loses neutrinos.

• Most of this energy is emitted through neutrinos, but a fraction of it can be released through gravitational waves.
• We model the evolution of a proto-neutron star in the Kelvin-Helmholtz phase using a general relativistic numerical code, and a recently proposed finite temperature, many-body equation of state; from this we consistently compute the diffusion coefficients driving the evolution.
• To include the many-body equation of state, we develop a new fitting formula for the high density baryon free energy at finite temperature and intermediate proton fraction.