From Choked to Successful: The Role of Black Hole Spin in Collapsar Jet Breakout

Long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) are believed to originate from the core collapse of massive Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, leading to the formation of a spinning black hole that powers a relativistic jet. The prompt emission is produced once the jet emerges from the stellar envelope. We perform 2D axisymmetric RHD simulations using the PLUTO code to model semi-self-consistent, accretion-powered jets launched by Kerr black holes. For the two progenitor models, we adopt black hole masses of 4 M and 5 M corresponding to WR stars of 10 M and 25 M, respectively. Unlike previous studies, our simulations employ continuous jet injection, with the injected power linked to black hole spin and accretion through an empirical relation motivated by GRMHD simulations, enabling a controlled exploration of jet energetics over 10 48 - 10 52, erg,s-1. We investigate jet breakout for WR progenitors of 10,M and 25,M and identify a critical spin threshold: jets are choked for a at most 0.001 and successfully break out for a > 0.001. The breakout time (t B) shows a correlation with jet luminosity (L jet) and spin (a), revealing three regimes: Newtonian (a 0.03), relativistic (a 0.3), and intermediate. A dichotomy is observed in jet head velocity at breakout, with β h 0.8 for high-spin and β h about 0.35 - 0.8 for lower spins. In the Newtonian regime, simulations yield t B proportional to L jet-0.48, steeper than analytical predictions, with systematically longer breakout times indicating modified jet-head scaling. In the relativistic regime, calibrated analytical models show improved agreement, with simulations indicating efficient jet propagation.