The long-term evolution of neutron star merger remnants { II. Radioactively powered transients

By D. Grossman, Oleg Korobkin, Stephan Rosswog, Tsvi Piran Uiuc Physics, S. University, Okc. 2013

192 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use 3D hydrodynamic simulations of the long-term evolution of neutron star merger ejecta to predict the light curves of electromagnetic transients that are powered by the decay of freshly produced r-process nuclei. For the dynamic ejecta that are launched by tidal and hydrodynamic interaction, we adopt grey opacities of 10 cm(2) g(-1), as suggested by recent studies. For our reference case of a 1.3-1.4 M-circle dot merger, we find a broad IR peak 2-4 d after the merger. The peak luminosity is approximate to 2 x 10(40) erg s(-1) for an average orientation, but increased by up to a factor of 4 for more favourable binary parameters and viewing angles. These signals are rather weak and hardly detectable within the large error box (similar to 100 deg(2)) of a gravitational wave trigger. A second electromagnetic transient results from neutrino-driven winds. These winds produce 'weak' r-process material with 50 < A < 130 and abundance patterns that vary substantially between different merger cases. For an adopted opacity of 1 cm(2) g(-1), the resulting transients peak in the UV/optical about 6 h after the merger with a luminosity of approximate to 10(41) erg s(-1) (for a wind of 0.01 M-circle dot) These signals are marginally detectable in deep follow-up searches (e. g. using Hypersuprime camera on Subaru). A subsequent detection of the weaker but longer lasting IR signal would allow an identification of the merger event. We briefly discuss the implications of our results to the recent detection of a near infrared (nIR) transient accompanying GRB 130603B.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ecac508c0fa321c268fcd6809bee93f871f8439c

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. Bing Zhang
3. E. Quataert
4. David Radice
5. R. Fern'andez
6. Albino Perego
7. Luke F. Roberts
8. D. Kasen

Citations in the corpus

• Kilonova light curves from the disc wind outflows of compact object mergers (2014, background): “…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).”
• PRODUCTION OF ALL THE r-PROCESS NUCLIDES IN THE DYNAMICAL EJECTA OF NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2014, background): “…tpeak are the total heating rate and peak time of a kilonova transient, Li & Paczyński 1998), of f/10−6 ≈ 1 and 0.5 for tpeak = 1 and 10 days, respectively, with the thermalization factor of 0.5 (Metzger et al. 2010). dependences of kilonova emission (Roberts et al. 2011; Grossman et al. 2014).”
• Red or blue? A potential kilonova imprint of the delay until black hole formation following a neutron star merger (2014, background): “…is a thermal IR/optical transient powered by the radioactive decay of heavy elements synthesized in the merger ejecta (a ‘kilonova’; Li & Paczyński 1998; Metzger et al. 2010; Goriely, Bauswein & Janka 2011; Roberts et al. 2011; Piran et al. 2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Tanaka et al. 2014).”
• RADIOACTIVITY AND THERMALIZATION IN THE EJECTA OF COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS AND THEIR IMPACT ON KILONOVA LIGHT CURVES (2016, background): “Kilonova emission is roughly isotropic (Roberts et al. 2011; Bauswein et al. 2013), and peaks on timescales of days to weeks postmerger (Barnes & Kasen 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; Grossman et al. 2014), making it ideal for EM follow-up of a GW trigger.”
• Neutrino-driven winds from neutron star merger remnants (2014, methodology): “With these mass estimates, we compute expected light curves for each tracer, using the semi-analytic spherically symmetric models of macronovae by Kulkarni (2005), the same as the ones described in Grossman et al. (2014).”
• The rate, luminosity function and time delay of non-Collapsar short GRBs (2014, background): “If the interpretation of this IR signal as macronova is correct it implies that 0.02–0.04 rprocess material were produced in this event (Barnes & Kasen 2013; Hotokezaka et al. 2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Piran, Korobkin & Rosswog 2014).”
• Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger (2017, methodology): “…features indicated that the source had physical properties similar to models of kilonovae (e.g., Metzger et al. 2010; Kasen et al. 2013; Barnes & Kasen 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Metzger & Fernández 2014; Barnes et al. 2016; Tanaka 2016; Kasen et al. 2017; Metzger 2017).”
• THE LIGHT CURVE OF THE MACRONOVA ASSOCIATED WITH THE LONG–SHORT BURST GRB 060614 (2015, background): “…that is launched during the merger event (e.g., Li & Paczynski 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Rosswog 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Korobkin et al. 2012; Barnes & Kasen 2013; Kasen et al. 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; Tanaka et al. 2014; Grossman et al. 2014; Kisaka et al. 2015a,b; Lippuner & Roberts 2015).”
• AT 2017gfo: An Anisotropic and Three-component Kilonova Counterpart of GW170817 (2017, methodology): “The ejecta propagation and the electromagnetic radiation are computed by an extension of the model presented in Grossman et al. (2014) and Martin et al. (2015).”
• The Emergence of a Lanthanide-rich Kilonova Following the Merger of Two Neutron Stars (2017, background): “Although considerably fainter, KN/MN, which are powered by radioactive decay, emit more isotropically (e.g., Grossman et al. 2014) and peak later than short-GRB afterglows.”
• Impact of ejecta morphology and composition on the electromagnetic signatures of neutron star mergers (2017, methodology): “Dynamical ejecta have been studied extensively (Rosswog et al. 1999; Rosswog 2013; Bauswein et al. 2013; Hotokezaka et al. 2013; Sekiguchi et al. 2016; Lehner et al. 2016; Rosswog et al. 2017; Endrizzi et al. 2016), and the consensus on the value of total ejected mass is the range between 10−4 and ∼”
• r-PROCESS LANTHANIDE PRODUCTION AND HEATING RATES IN KILONOVAE (2015, methodology): “Rather than post-processing full hydrodynamic models as was done in Goriely et al. (2011); Korobkin et al. (2012); Grossman et al. (2014); Wanajo et al. (2014); Just et al. (2015); Martin et al. (2015), we use a parametrized approach that allows us to systematically study the impact of different…”
• Signatures of hypermassive neutron star lifetimes on r-process nucleosynthesis in the disc ejecta from neutron star mergers (2017, background): “…r-process can power an optical or infrared transient called a kilonova (also called macronova in the literature; Li & Paczyński 1998; Kulkarni 2005; Metzger et al. 2010; Roberts et al. 2011; Kasen et al. 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013; Grossman et al. 2014; Metzger 2017; Wollaeger et al. 2017).”
• Dynamical Mass Ejection from Binary Neutron Star Mergers (2016, methodology): “We use a simple analytical model developed by Grossman et al. (2014) to describe the basic features of the macronova emission that would be produced by the ejecta from our simulations.”