ELECTROMAGNETIC TRANSIENTS POWERED BY NUCLEAR DECAY IN THE TIDAL TAILS OF COALESCING COMPACT BINARIES

By Luke F. Roberts, D. Kasen, William H. Lee, E. Ramirez-Ruiz. 2011

240 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We investigate the possibility that long tidal tails formed during compact object mergers may produce optical transients powered by the decay of freshly synthesized r-process material. Precise modeling of the merger dynamics allows for a realistic determination of the thermodynamic conditions in the ejected debris. We combine hydrodynamic and full nuclear network calculations to determine the resultant r-process abundances and the heating of the material by their decays. The subsequent homologous structure is mapped into a radiative transfer code to synthesize emergent model light curves and determine how their properties (variability and color evolution) depend on the mass ratio and orientation of the merging binary. The radiation emanating from the ejected debris, though less spectacular than a typical supernova, should be observable in transient surveys and we estimate the associated detection rates. We find that it is unlikely that photometry alone will be able to distinguish between different binary mass ratios and the nature of the compact objects, emphasizing the need for spectroscopic follow-up of these events. The case for (or against) compact object mergers as the progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts can be tested if such electromagnetic transients are detected (or not) in coincidence with some bursts, although they may be obscured by on-axis afterglows.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/71aefbec0c1a8327ecc4477a88ace3d4f0c5e87d

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. E. Quataert
3. Volker Springel
4. L. Hernquist
5. P. Hopkins
6. D. Kasen
7. E. Berger
8. R. Fern'andez

In Atmospheric Science

1. B. Metzger
2. E. Berger
3. R. Fern'andez
4. D. Kasen
5. J. Barnes
6. T. Piran
7. E. Nakar
8. Stephan Rosswog

Citations in the corpus

• WHAT IS THE MOST PROMISING ELECTROMAGNETIC COUNTERPART OF A NEUTRON STAR BINARY MERGER? (2011, background): “…of this association, the mergers are expected to be accompanied by isotropic thermal emission, powered by the radioactive decay of heavy elements in the merger ejecta (Li & Paczyński 1998; hereafter LP98; Kulkarni 2005; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Goriely et al. 2011).”
• AT 2017gfo: An Anisotropic and Three-component Kilonova Counterpart of GW170817 (2017, background): “…neutron-rich r-process elements powers a transient called “kilonova” or “macronova” (MKN, Li & Paczyński 1998; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Kasen et al. 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; the term “macronova” initially refered to a transient powered by free-neutron…”
• A Magnetar Origin for the Kilonova Ejecta in GW170817 (2018, background): “The early-time blue emission is well-explained by radioactive material with a relatively low opacity (a “blue” KN; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011), as would be expected if the outer ejecta layers contain exclusively light r-process nuclei synthesized from matter with a relatively high…”
• Neutrino-driven winds from neutron star merger remnants (2014, background): “…2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Rosswog et al. 2014a; Tanaka et al. 2014) for the so-called ‘macro-’ or ‘kilonovae’ (Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010a,b; Roberts et al. 2011), radioactively powered transients from the decay of freshly produced r-process elements.”
• On the astrophysical robustness of the neutron star merger r-process (2012, background): “There have been recent r-process studies in a compact binary merger context (Roberts et al. 2011; Goriely et al. 2011; Wanajo & Janka 2012) which, in agreement with the results of the first study, confirm the occurence of a robust r-process.”
• r-PROCESS NUCLEOSYNTHESIS IN DYNAMICALLY EJECTED MATTER OF NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2011, methodology): “Astronomically, the discovery of electromagnetic radiation from kilo-nova events (Roberts et al. 2011; Metzger et al. 2010) could mean the first in-situ observation of freshly produced r-process material.”
• IDENTIFYING ELUSIVE ELECTROMAGNETIC COUNTERPARTS TO GRAVITATIONAL WAVE MERGERS: AN END-TO-END SIMULATION (2012, background): “…or near infrared, referred to as a kilonova, macronova or minisupernova, may be powered by weak radioactive decay arising from any neutron-rich ejecta (e.g., Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Chawla et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Piran et al. 2012; Wanajo & Janka 2012).”
• RADIOACTIVITY AND THERMALIZATION IN THE EJECTA OF COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS AND THEIR IMPACT ON KILONOVA LIGHT CURVES (2016, methodology): “To determine the ejecta composition, we calculate r-process nucleosynthesis on a set of smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) trajectories extracted from a relativistic simulation of an equal-mass (1.35 M –1.35 M ) NS 2 merger (Goriely et al. 2011).”
• Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger (2017, background): “…and infrared emission, a so-called kilonova/macronova (hereafter kilonova; Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Barnes & Kasen 2013; Kasen et al. 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Barnes et al. 2016; Tanaka 2016; Metzger…”
• Kilonova light curves from the disc wind outflows of compact object mergers (2014, methodology): “…rise to an optical/infrared transient similar to, but dimmer and briefer than, an ordinary supernova (Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Barnes & Kasen 2013; Piran, Nakar & Rosswog 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Tanaka et al. 2014).”
• OPACITIES AND SPECTRA OF THE r-PROCESS EJECTA FROM NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2013, background): “Previous radiative models predict peak bolometric luminosities around 1040−1042 ergs s−1, peaking at optical wavelengths and lasting around a day (Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Goriely et al. 2011; Piran et al. 2012).”
• Comprehensive nucleosynthesis analysis for ejecta of compact binary mergers (2014, background): “…ow nloaded from mergers (e.g. Bauswein et al. 2013b), for example, tend to produce faster ejecta than Newtonian simulations (e.g. Roberts et al. 2011; Korobkin et al. 2012; Grossman et al. 2014; Rosswog et al. 2014), and – compared to models that disregard neutrino effects…”
• The Combined Ultraviolet, Optical, and Near-infrared Light Curves of the Kilonova Associated with the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817: Unified Data Set, Analytic Models, and Physical Implications (2017, background): “…UVOIR emission is due at least in part to a kilonova, a quasi-thermal transient powered by the radioactive decay of newly synthesized r-process nuclei and isotopes (Li & Paczyński 1998; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Metzger & Berger 2012; Barnes & Kasen 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013).”
• THE FORMATION OF ECCENTRIC COMPACT BINARY INSPIRALS AND THE ROLE OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE EMISSION IN BINARY–SINGLE STELLAR ENCOUNTERS (2013, background): “…non-eccentric binary mergers (Lattimer & Schramm 1974; Rosswog et al. 1999; Rosswog & Liebendörfer 2003; Rosswog 2005; Lee & Ramirez-Ruiz 2007; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Bauswein et al. 2013; Kasen et al. 2013; Barnes & Kasen 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; Grossman et al. 2013).”
• First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: a tale of two elements - chemical evolution of magnesium and europium (2017, background): “…values consistent with both observational and theoretical studies of r-process enrichment, Mrp = 0.05 M (Rosswog et al. 1999; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Bauswein et al. 2013; Piran et al. 2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Just et al. 2015; Ramirez-Ruiz et al. 2015), γNSNS/γSNIa = 10−3,…”
• Long-term GRMHD simulations of neutron star merger accretion discs: implications for electromagnetic counterparts (2018, background): “This type of transient had been predicted to arise out of sub-relativistic, neutron-rich ejecta from the merger that is radioactively heated by freshly produced r-process elements (Li & Paczyński 1998; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Tanaka 2016; Metzger 2017).”