TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bovard, Luke
A1  - Martin, Dirk
A1  - Guercilena, Federico Maria
A1  - Arcones Segovia, Almudena
A1  - Rezzolla, Luciano
A1  - Korobkin, Oleg
T1  - r-process nucleosynthesis from matter ejected in binary neutron star mergers
T2  - Physical Review. D
N2  - When binary systems of neutron stars merge, a very small fraction of their rest mass is ejected, either dynamically or secularly. This material is neutron-rich and its nucleosynthesis provides the astrophysical site for the production of heavy elements in the Universe, together with a kilonova signal confirming neutron-star mergers as the origin of short gamma-ray bursts. We perform full general-relativistic simulations of binary neutron-star mergers employing three different nuclear-physics equations of state (EOSs), considering both equal- and unequal-mass configurations, and adopting a leakage scheme to account for neutrino radiative losses. Using a combination of techniques, we carry out an extensive and systematic study of the hydrodynamical, thermodynamical, and geometrical properties of the matter ejected dynamically, employing the WinNet nuclear-reaction network to recover the relative abundances of heavy elements produced by each configurations. Among the results obtained, three are particularly important. First, we find that, within the sample considered here, both the properties of the dynamical ejecta and the nucleosynthesis yields are robust against variations of the EOS and masses. Second, using a conservative but robust criterion for unbound matter, we find that the amount of ejected mass is ≲10−3 M⊙, hence at least one order of magnitude smaller than what normally assumed in modelling kilonova signals. Finally, using a simplified and gray-opacity model we assess the observability of the infrared kilonova emission finding, that for all binaries the luminosity peaks around ∼1=2 day in the H-band, reaching a maximum magnitude of −13, and decreasing rapidly after one day.
KW  - General relativity
KW  - General relativity equations & solutions
KW  - Nucleosynthesis in explosive environments
KW  - Transient & explosive astronomical phenomena
Y1  - 2017
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/62280
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-622805
SN  - 2470-0029
N1  - This research is supported in part by the ERC Synergy Grant “BlackHoleCam: Imaging the Event Horizon of Black Holes” (Grant No. 610058), the ERC starting grant “EUROPIUM” (Grant No. 677912), by “NewCompStar”, COST Action MP1304, by the LOEWE-Program in the Helmholtz International Center (HIC) for FAIR, by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant No. 671698) (call FETHPC-1-2014, project ExaHyPE), by the Helmholtz-University Young Investigator Grant No. VH-NG-825, and by the BMBF under Grant No. 05P15RDFN1.
VL  - 96
IS  - 12, art. 124005
SP  - 1
EP  - 25
PB  - Inst.
CY  - Woodbury, NY
ER  -