r-Process Nucleosynthesis in Hot Accretion Disk Flows from Black Hole-Neutron Star Mergers

By Ruth Surman, Gail McLaughlin, M. Ruffert, Hans-Thomas Janka, W. Hix. 2008

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We consider hot accretion disk outflows from black hole-neutron star mergers in the context of the nucleosynthesis they produce. We begin with a three-dimensional numerical model of a black hole-neutron star merger and calculate the neutrino and antineutrino fluxes emitted from the resulting accretion disk. We then follow the element synthesis in material outflowing the disk along parameterized trajectories. We find that at least a weak r-process is produced, and in some cases a main r-process as well. The neutron-rich conditions required for this production of r-process nuclei stem directly from the interactions of the neutrinos emitted by the disk with the free neutrons and protons in the outflow.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f2a7b39ed261db580343e4b9a4121b7153aa6e14

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THE r-PROCESS NUCLEOSYNTHESIS IN THE VARIOUS JET-LIKE EXPLOSIONS OF MAGNETOROTATIONAL CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE (2015, methodology): “A series of long- 1 The “disk wind” of collapsar models has been also investigated (e.g., Surman et al. 2006, 2008; Perego et al. 2014; Surman et al. 2014) as sites of heavy element nucleosynthesis term explosion simulations, based on the special relativistic MHD (Takiwaki et al. 2009; Takiwaki &…”
Comprehensive nucleosynthesis analysis for ejecta of compact binary mergers (2014, background): “Such ejecta could be interesting environments for r-process, p-process, and nickel nucleosynthesis (e.g. Surman et al. 2008, 2014; Caballero, McLaughlin & Surman 2012; Wanajo & Janka 2012; Malkus, Friedland & McLaughlin 2014, and references therein).”
Red or blue? A potential kilonova imprint of the delay until black hole formation following a neutron star merger (2014, background): “…the central HMNS. Outflows from this accretion disc over longer, viscous timescales also contribute to the merger ejecta (e.g. Metzger, Quataert & Thompson 2008a; Surman et al. 2008; Dessart et al. 2009; Lee, Ramirez-Ruiz & López-Cámara 2009; Metzger, Piro & Quataert 2008b; Wanajo & Janka 2012).”
Neutrino-driven winds from neutron star merger remnants (2014, methodology): “…in an order-of-magnitude sense or via parametrized models (Ruffert et al. 1997; Rosswog & Ramirez-Ruiz 2002; Rosswog & Liebendörfer 2003; McLaughlin & Surman 2005; Surman, McLaughlin & Hix 2006; Metzger et al. 2008; Surman et al. 2008; Caballero, McLaughlin & Surman 2012; Wanajo & Janka 2012).”
Signatures of hypermassive neutron star lifetimes on r-process nucleosynthesis in the disc ejecta from neutron star mergers (2017, methodology): “…merger disks focused on neutrino-driven outflows and used a parametric treatment to obtain thermodynamic trajectories for composition analysis (e.g., Surman et al. 2008; Wanajo et al. 2011), finding that conditions for both light and heavy r-process elements are possible in these outflows.”
EFFECT OF A HIGH OPACITY ON THE LIGHT CURVES OF RADIOACTIVELY POWERED TRANSIENTS FROM COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS (2013, background): “Though the physical properties of the disk winds remain uncertain, neutrino irradiation may drive the electron fraction to Ye & 0.4, in which case the nucleosynthesis may not extend past Z ∼ 50 (Surman et al. 2006, 2008; Metzger et al. 2008; Darbha et al. 2010).”
Electromagnetic counterparts of compact object mergers powered by the radioactive decay of r‐process nuclei (2010, methodology): “Although some of the wind-driven material in NS mergers may have high entropy (Surman et al. 2008; Metzger et al. 2008), most of the total mass ejected likely has low-modest entropy (S ∼ 3−10 kb baryon −1; Metzger et al. 2009a).”
OPACITIES AND SPECTRA OF THE r-PROCESS EJECTA FROM NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2013, background): “If neutrinos drive Ye close to 0.5, the composition may be dominated by radioactive 56Ni (Surman et al. 2008).”
PRODUCTION OF ALL THE r-PROCESS NUCLIDES IN THE DYNAMICAL EJECTA OF NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2014, background): “Contribution from, e.g., the subsequent BH accretion-torus wind (Surman et al. 2008; Wanajo & Janka 2012; Fernández & Metzger 2013) might solve this problem.”
The impact of individual nuclear properties on $r$-process nucleosynthesis (2015, background): “, however, suer from an uncertain delay time [34]. Other potential astrophysical sites that have been explored include hot accretion disk out ows from neutron star or neutron star-black hole mergers [35, 36, 30, 31], supernova neutronrich jets [37], gamma-ray burst collapsar out ows [38, 39, 40], sh”
The long-term evolution of neutron star merger remnants { II. Radioactively powered transients (2013, background): “…et al. 2013; Rosswog 2013), b) neutrino-driven winds from the remnant (Ruffert et al. 1997; Rosswog & Ramirez-Ruiz 2002, 2003; Rosswog et al. 2003; Surman et al. 2008; Dessart et al. 2009; Caballero et al. 2012; Wanajo & Janka 2012) and c) the final disintegration of accretion discs that occurs…”
Delayed outflows from black hole accretion tori following neutron star binary coalescence (2013, background): “Metzger et al. (2009a, hereafter MPQ09) constructed a height-integrated, time-dependent model of the viscous spreading of accretion disks formed from NS-NS/NS-BH mergers, including the evolution of the midplane electron fraction Ye due to weak interactions.”
NEUTRINO SIGNATURES AND THE NEUTRINO-DRIVEN WIND IN BINARY NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2008, background): “…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; Symbalisty & Schramm 1982; Eichler et al. 1989; Davies et al. 1994; Freiburghaus et al. 1999; Rosswog et al. 1999; Surman et al. 2008).”
The long-term evolution of neutron star merger remnants – I. The impact of r-process nucleosynthesis (2013, background): “Nucleosynthesis features of such disc ejecta (partially also invoking neutrino flavour oscillations) have been studied by Surman et al. (2008), Caballero et al. (2012), Wanajo & Janka (2012) and Malkus et al. (2012).”
NUGRID STELLAR DATA SET. I. STELLAR YIELDS FROM H TO BI FOR STARS WITH METALLICITIES Z = 0.02 and Z = 0.01 (2013, background): “…(e.g., Fryer et al. 2006; Arcones et al. 2007); the polar jets from rotating magneto-hydrodynamical explosions of CCSN (Nishimura et al. 2006); the neutron-rich matter ejected from merging neutron stars (Freiburghaus et al. 1999) – 4 – and neutron-star-black hole mergers (Surman et al. 2008).”