Mergers of Neutron Star-Black Hole Binaries with Small Mass Ratios: Nucleosynthesis, Gamma-Ray Bursts, and Electromagnetic Transients

By Stephan Rosswog. 2005

237 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We discuss simulations of the coalescence of black hole-neutron star binary systems with black hole masses between 14 and 20 M☉. The calculations use a three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics code, a temperature-dependent, nuclear equation of state, and a multiflavor neutrino scheme. General relativistic effects are mimicked using the Paczyński-Wiita pseudo-potential and gravitational radiation reaction forces. Unlike previous, purely Newtonian calculations, in none of the explored cases does episodic mass transfer occur. The neutron star is always completely disrupted after most of its mass has been transferred directly into the hole. For black hole masses between 14 and 16 M☉ an accretion disk forms; large parts of it, however, are inside the last stable orbit and therefore falling with large radial velocities into the hole. These disks are (opposite to the neutron star merger case) thin and—except for a spiral shock—essentially cold. For higher mass black holes (MBH ≥ 18 M☉) almost the entire neutron star disappears in the hole without forming an accretion disk. In these cases the surviving material is spun up by tidal torques and ejected as a half-ring of neutron-rich matter. None of the investigated systems is a promising gamma-ray burst (GRB) central engine. We find between 0.01 and 0.2 M☉ of the neutron star to be dynamically ejected. Like in a Type Ia supernova, the radioactive decay of this material powers a light curve with a peak luminosity of a few times 1044 ergs s-1. The maximum is reached about 3 days after the coalescence and is mainly visible in the optical/near-infrared band. The coalescence itself may produce a precursor pulse with a thermal spectrum of ~10 ms duration.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8dafe239b9e8cb000251fb6ac55e3ffbc1779005

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. Bing Zhang
3. E. Berger
4. Stephan Rosswog
5. D. Kasen
6. E. Quataert
7. R. Fern'andez
8. Luke F. Roberts

Citations in the corpus

• Delayed outflows from black hole accretion tori following neutron star binary coalescence (2013, background): “0.1) is ejected by tidal forces during the merger (Lattimer & Schramm 1974; Rosswog et al. 1999; Rosswog 2005; Chawla et al. 2010; Stephens et al. 2011; East et al. 2012; Rosswog 2012; Rosswog et al. 2013; Bauswein et al. 2013), and recent nuclear reaction network calculations largely agree on the…”
• Astrophysical smooth particle hydrodynamics (2009, background): “Successful implementations of such individual time step schemes can be found, for example, in [187,188,3,123,189,12,190,151].”
• ELECTROMAGNETIC TRANSIENTS POWERED BY NUCLEAR DECAY IN THE TIDAL TAILS OF COALESCING COMPACT BINARIES (2011, methodology): “The ejected mass and velocity are both dependent on the nuclear EoS (Lee 2000; Oechslin et al. 2007) and the treatment of gravity (Rosswog 2005), both of which we have not studied in detail here.”
• THE AFTERGLOWS OF SWIFT-ERA GAMMA-RAY BURSTS. II. TYPE I GRB VERSUS TYPE II GRB OPTICAL AFTERGLOWS (2008, methodology): “The viability of both neutron star-neutron star and neutron star-black hole mergers to create Type I GRBs has been shown in numerical simulations (e.g., Rosswog et al. 2003; Aloy et al. 2005; Rosswog 2005; Oechslin & Janka 2006).”
• RADIATIVE TRANSFER SIMULATIONS OF NEUTRON STAR MERGER EJECTA (2013, background): “In a merger of binary NSs, a small fraction of matter is expected to be ejected (e.g., Rosswog et al. 1999; Rosswog 2005; Lee & Ramirez-Ruiz 2007; Duez 2010; Goriely et al. 2011; Rosswog 2013; Hotokezaka et al. 2013; Bauswein et al. 2013).”
• EFFECT OF A HIGH OPACITY ON THE LIGHT CURVES OF RADIOACTIVELY POWERED TRANSIENTS FROM COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS (2013, background): “In reality, the ejecta may have a highly asymmetric, “tidal tail” geometry (Rosswog 2005).”
• The Emergence of a Lanthanide-rich Kilonova Following the Merger of Two Neutron Stars (2017, background): “…thought to be the progenitors of short-duration gamma-ray bursts (short-GRBs; e.g., Eichler et al. 1989; Nakar 2007), while their neutron-rich ejecta should give rise to a socalled “kilonova” or “macronova” (KN/MN) explosion (Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010).”
• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. IV. Detection of Near-infrared Signatures of r-process Nucleosynthesis with Gemini-South (2017, background): “Li & Paczyński (1998) noted that the synthesis of r-process material would naturally produce a large number of radioactive isotopes, the decay energies of which could power an optical transient associated with a neutron star merger (see also Rosswog 2005).”
• Gamma-ray burst afterglows (2006, background): “Although X-ray flares at 100s of seconds or later still challenge the model, extended accretion over several seconds could be reproduced (Faber et al. 2006; cf. Rosswog 2005).”
• The electromagnetic signals of compact binary mergers (2012, methodology): “…short GRBs or not, mergers do launch energetic subrelativistic and mildly relativistic outflows (e.g. Rosswog et al. 1999; Ruffert & Janka 2001; Rosswog 2005; Rosswog & Price 2007; Yamamoto, Shibata & Taniguchi 2008; Rezzolla et al. 2010), unless the equation of state at supranuclear densities…”
• The first direct double neutron star merger detection: Implications for cosmic nucleosynthesis (2017, background): “…detection of electromagnetic radiation from the radioactive decay of freshly synthesised r-process elements in the aftermath of a merger, a so-called "macronova" or "kilonova" (e.g. Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Kasen et al. 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013).”
• NEUTRINO SIGNATURES AND THE NEUTRINO-DRIVEN WIND IN BINARY NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2008, background): “…et al. 2008b), 2) the production of short-hard GRBs (Ruffert et al. 1997; Ruffert & Janka 1999; Rosswog & Ramirez-Ruiz 2003; Rosswog et al. 2003; Rosswog 2005; Janka et al. 2006; Birkl et al. 2007), and 3) the pollution of the environment by r-process nuclei (Lattimer & Schramm 1974, 1976;…”
• THE FORMATION OF ECCENTRIC COMPACT BINARY INSPIRALS AND THE ROLE OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE EMISSION IN BINARY–SINGLE STELLAR ENCOUNTERS (2013, background): “…et al. 2013) than the widely discussed, 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;…”
• AT 2017gfo: An Anisotropic and Three-component Kilonova Counterpart of GW170817 (2017, background): “…decay of the freshly synthesized 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…”
• The long-term evolution of neutron star merger remnants – I. The impact of r-process nucleosynthesis (2013, background): “…believed to also trigger short-lived electromagnetic transients powered by radioactivity, so-called ‘macronovae’ (Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Goriely et al. 2011a; Metzger & Berger 2012; Kelley et al. 2012; Rosswog et al. 2013;…”
• Impact of ejecta morphology and composition on the electromagnetic signatures of neutron star mergers (2017, methodology): “Mergers of neutron stars with black holes can release up to 0.2 M of material (Rosswog 2005; Foucart et al. 2015;Kyutoku et al. 2015;Kawaguchi et al. 2015; Foucart et al. 2016).”
• Electromagnetic counterparts of compact object mergers powered by the radioactive decay of r‐process nuclei (2010, methodology): “For instance, Rosswog (2005) estimates a NS merger transient peak luminosity Lpeak ∼ 10 44 ergs s−1, corresponding to an effective value of f ∼ 10−3 for Mej ∼ 10 −2M⊙ (eq.”