From: metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
Subject: Re: Supermassive stars and HD limit (was Big Bang...)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 01:59:51 GMT


njzy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (T. Joseph Lazio, Cornell University) writes:

> O.K., I'm confused.  Just what is what?  In previous posts, Tom, you have
> claimed that QSOs are the result of cool, supermassive stars.  Now you are
> claiming that the supermassive stars collapse they give rise to classical
> double-lobed radio sources.  Am I to infer that the Meta-model predicts an
> evolutionary sequence from cool, supermassive stars being QSOs to stellar
> remants being double-lobed sources?

     I do not wish to create the illusion that an all-seeing Tom worked all
this out in advance.  You and other astronomers in this discussion have asked
very insightful questions, often in areas that I had not previously thought
about.  To answer them, I have gone back to the model and attempted to
determine what can be deduced from it to answer these questions.  The picture
that is emerging is of an extended H-R diagram into the high luminosity range
for the expected supermassive stars.  As masses get greater yet, luminosity
tops out, redshifts increase, surface temperatures cool, and we have another
horizontal branch in the diagram.  I can only guess what happens to such
stars following a supernova explosion, but obviously they become collapsed
objects of very high redshift, and are potentially "quasar-like" in other
ways, such as jets or lobes and X-ray emission (as we see for the Crab
remnant).  All of this has yet to be dealt with quantitatively by stellar
evolution experts, which I am not.

> Secondly, in reading your paragraph above, I see it making two, testable
> predictions:
> I)  When "normal" stars collapse, the result is a supernova.  When these
> putative supermassive stars collapse, they should produce super-supernovae.
> Presumably these super-supernovae could be distinguished in some fashion
> from the "run-of-the-mill" supernovae.  What would the distinguishing
> characteristics be and have any super-supernovae ever been observed?  I can
> think of one characteristic:  The absolute magnitude.  Surely these
> super-supernovae would be much brighter than regular supernovae; have there
> been unusually bright supernovae reported?  (By unusually bright, I would
> suspect a few to several magnitudes, not merely 0.1 magnitude or so
> [remember this is in the absolute magnitude].)

     There are lots of different supernova classes (Ia, Ib, Ic, II).  And
there is at least a magnitude of variation in the absolute luminosity
attained by each of these classes.  The Meta Model implies that the lifetimes
of giant stars are longer than in conventional models because of the "hidden"
mass content, so most supernovas are actually from supermassive stars, not
just giant stars.  I doubt that super-supernovas exist.

> II) Some QSOs are seen well removed from galaxies.  Has there ever been a
> case in which a supernova was observed being well removed from the outer
> extent of a galaxy?  (I mean by, say, a few arcminutes, not merely on the
> outer edge of the optical emission of a galaxy.)

     QSO's get there by ejection from the galaxies during supernova
explosions, so I wouldn't expect this.  Also your question is very difficult
to answer because, as you know, there is no "outer edge" to the optical
emission of a galaxy.  The longer the exposure, the greater the extent.  But
as a handy pseudo-example, how about the supernova picture from NGC 4527 in
Virgo, shown on page 129 of the current (August) issue of Sky & Telescope?

> Does Arp's picture change if the peculiar HI cloud of Giovanelli & Haynes
> is not a peculiar HI cloud, but has some stars associated with it?

     I think that stars were implied in the original description ("the first
proto material ever found in the universe in the actual process of collapsing
to form a galaxy").  But I'm interested in the details, since I know nothing
about this object except what I quoted.  -|Tom|-

-- 
Tom Van Flandern / Washington, DC / metares@well.sf.ca.us
Meta Research was founded to foster research into ideas not otherwise
supported because they conflict with mainstream theories in Astronomy.
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