The DOI matches its Crossref record; 46 of the 46 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
RADIOACTIVITY AND THERMALIZATION IN THE EJECTA OF COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS AND THEIR IMPACT ON KILONOVA LIGHT CURVES
Open accessAbstract
One promising electromagnetic signature of compact object mergers are kilonovae: approximately isotropic radioactively powered transients that peak days to weeks post-merger. Key uncertainties in kilonova modeling include the emission profiles of the radioactive decay products—non-thermal -particles, -particles, fission fragments, and -rays—and the efficiency with which their kinetic energy is absorbed by the ejecta. The radioactive energy emitted, along with its thermalization efficiency, sets the luminosity budget and is therefore crucial for predicting kilonova light curves. We outline uncertainties in the radioactivity, describe the processes by which the decay products transfer energy to the ejecta, and calculate time-dependent thermalization efficiencies for each particle type. We determine the net thermalization efficiency and explore its dependence on r-process yields—in particular, the production of -decaying translead nuclei—and on ejecta mass, velocity, and magnetic fields. We incorporate our results into detailed radiation transport simulations, and calculate updated kilonova light curve predictions. Thermalization effects reduce kilonova luminosities by a factor of roughly 2 at peak, and by an order of magnitude at later times (15 days or more after explosion). We present analytic fits to time-dependent thermalization efficiencies, which can be used to improve light curve models. We revisit the putative kilonova that accompanied gamma-ray burst 130603B, and estimate the mass ejected in that event. We find later time kilonova light curves can be significantly impacted by -decay from translead isotopes; data at these times may therefore be diagnostic of ejecta abundances.
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Cites
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Origin of the heavy elements in binary neutron-star mergers from a gravitational-wave event
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Self-citationThe X-ray counterpart to the gravitational-wave event GW170817
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A kilonova as the electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational-wave source
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Illuminating gravitational waves: A concordant picture of photons from a neutron star merger
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Self-citationLight curves of the neutron star merger GW170817/SSS17a: Implications for r-process nucleosynthesis
Drout, M. R., Piro, A. L., Shappee, B. J., Kilpatrick, C. D., Simon, J. D., Contreras, C., Coulter, D. A., Foley, R. J., Siebert, M. R., Morrell, N., et al. (2017) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aaq0049 · Cited by 820
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Metadata
- Authors
- Barnes, J., Kasen, D., Wu, M.-R., & Martínez-Pinedo, G.
- Venue
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2016-09-28
- Volume
- 829
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 110
- ISSN
- 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
- 1538-4357
- OpenAlex
- W2397772701
- Cited by
- 339
- References
- 46
- FWCI
- 19.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
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