We study the nucleosynthesis products in neutrino-driven winds from rapidly rotating, highly magnetised and misaligned protomagnetars using the nuclear reaction network SkyNet. We adopt a semi-analytic parametrized model for the protomagnetar and systematically study the capabilities of its neutrino-driven wind for synthesizing nuclei and eventually producing ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). We find that for neutron-rich outflows ($Y_e<0.5$), synthesis of heavy elements ($\overline{A}\sim 20-65$) is possible during the first $\sim 10$ seconds of the outflow, but these nuclei are subjected to composition-altering photodisintegration during the epoch of particle acceleration at the dissipation radii. However, after the first $\sim 10$ seconds of the outflow, nucleosynthesis reaches lighter elements ($\overline{A}\sim 10-50$) that are not subjected to subsequent photodisintegration. For proton-rich ($Y_e \geq 0.5$) outflows, synthesis is more limited ($\overline{A}\sim 4-15$). These suggest that while protomagnetars typically do not synthesize nuclei heavier than second r-process peak elements, they are intriguing sources of intermediate/heavy mass UHECRs. For all configurations, the most rapidly rotating protomagnetars are more conducive for nucleosynthesis with a weaker dependence on the magnetic field strength.
It has been suggested that strongly magnetised and rapidly rotating protoneutron stars (PNSs) may produce long duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) originating from stellar core collapse. We explore the steady-state properties and heavy element nucleosynthesis in neutrino-driven winds from such PNSs whose magnetic axis is generally misaligned with the axis of rotation. We consider a wide variety of central engine properties such as surface dipole field strength, initial rotation period and magnetic obliquity to show that heavy element nuclei can be synthesised in the radially expanding wind. This …
Survival of ultraheavy nuclei in astrophysical sources: applications to protomagnetar outflows
Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University（东北大学前沿跨学科研究院）；Astronomical Institute, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University（东北大学理学研究科天文学研究所）；Center for Neutrino Physics, Department of Physics, Virginia Tech（弗吉尼亚理工大学物理系中微子物理中心）；Department of Physics, Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, University of Wisconsin（威斯康星大学威斯康星冰立方粒子天体物理中心物理系）；Department of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Indore（印度印多尔理工学院天文、天体物理与空间工程系）；Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学物理系）；Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学天文与天体物理系）；Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学引力与宇宙研究所）
Ultra high-energy cosmic rays from relativistic outflows in accretion induced collapse of white dwarfs
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory（费米国家加速器实验室）；Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago（芝加哥大学卡弗里宇宙物理研究所）；Institute of Science Tokyo（东京科学大学）；The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；Virginia Tech（弗吉尼亚理工大学）
We investigate nucleosynthesis inside the gamma-ray burst (GRB) accretion disks and in the outflows launched from these disks mainly in the context of Type II collapsars. We report the synthesis of several unusual nuclei like 31P, 39K, 43Sc, 35Cl and various isotopes of titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese and copper in the disk. We also confirm the presence of iron-group and alpha-elements in the disk, as shown by previous authors. Much of these heavy elements thus synthesized are ejected from the disk and survive in the outflows. While emission lines of several of these elements have been…
Along with binary neutron star mergers, the in-spiral and merger of a black hole and a neutron star is a predicted site of $r$-process nucleosynthesis and associated kilonovae. For the right mass ratio, very large amounts of neutron rich material may become unbound from the post-merger accretion disk. We simulate a suite of four post-merger disks with full-transport general relativistic neutrino radiation magnetohydrodynamics. We find that the outflows from these disks are very close to the threshold conditions for robust $r$-process nucleosynthesis. For these conditions, the detailed properti…
We investigate nucleosynthesis inside the gamma-ray burst (GRB) accretion disks formed by the Type II collapsars and outflows launched from these disks. We deal with accretion disks having relatively low accretion rates: 0.001 M_sun s^{-1} <~ Mdot <~ 0.01 M_sun s^{-1} and hence they are predominantly advection dominated. We report the synthesis of several unusual nuclei like 31P, 39K, 43Sc, 35Cl and various isotopes of titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese and copper in the disk. We also confirm that isotopes of iron, cobalt, nickel, argon, calcium, sulphur and silicon get synthesized in the…
We investigate nucleosynthesis inside the outflows from gamma-ray burst (GRB) accretion disks formed by the Type II collapsars. In these collapsars, massive stars undergo core collapse to form a proto-neutron star initially and a mild supernova explosion is driven. The supernova ejecta lack momentum and subsequently this newly formed neutron star gets transformed to a stellar mass black hole via massive fallback. The hydrodynamics and the nucleosynthesis in these accretion disks has been studied extensively in the past. Several heavy elements are synthesized in the disk and much of these heavy…
Multiple spectroscopic lines of different elements observed in winds from X-ray binaries (XRBs), based on one zone model, indicate super-solar abundance of elements, e.g. Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Cr, Mn, Co. The one zone model considers similar hydrodynamics of underlying winds. In order to find a possible origin of these overabundances, we explore nucleosynthesis in advective, geometrically thick, sub-Keplerian, accretion disc in XRBs and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and further in outflows launched from the disc. Based on flow hydrodynamics and solving nuclear network code therein by semi-implic…
Cosmic metals are widely believed to be produced by supernovae (SNe) and compact object mergers. Here, we discuss the nucleosynthesis of neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) with outflows in the core-collapse SNe (CCSNe), and show that the outflows from NDAFs can have a significant contribution to the $^{56}$Ni abundance in the faint explosions if the masses of the progenitor stars are within about $25-50$ $M_\odot$. Less massive progenitor stars can produce more $^{56}$Ni than their more massive counterparts in the NDAF outflow nucleosynthesis channel. Therefore, we find that the total …
We study proton rich nucleosynthesis in windlike outflows from gamma-ray bursts accretion disks with the aim to determine if such outflows are a site of the vp-process. The efficacy of this vp-process depends on thermodynamic and hydrodynamic factors. We discuss the importance of the entropy of the material, the outflow rate, the initial ejection point and accretion rate of the disk. In some cases the vp-process pushes the nucleosynthesis out to A~100 and produces light p-nuclei. However, even when these nuclei are not produced, neutrino induced interactions can significantly alter the abundan…
Short gamma-ray bursts require a rotating black hole, surrounded by a magnetized relativistic accretion disk, such as the one formed by coalescing binary neutron stars or neutron star - black hole systems. The accretion onto a Kerr black hole is the mechanism of launching a baryon-free relativistic jet. An additional uncollimated outflow, consisting of sub-relativistic neutron-rich material which becomes unbound by thermal, magnetic and viscous forces, is responsible for blue and red kilonova. We explore the formation, composition and geometry of the secondary outflow by means of simulating ac…
We investigate the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in the winds ejected by accretion disks formed in neutron star mergers. We compute the element formation in disk outflows from hypermassive neutron star (HMNS) remnants of variable lifetime, including the effect of angular momentum transport in the disk evolution. We employ long-term axisymmetric hydrodynamic disk simulations to model the ejecta, and compute r-process nucleosynthesis with tracer particles using a nuclear reaction network containing $\sim 8000$ species. We find that the previously known strong correlation between HMNS lifetim…
The merger of binary neutron stars, or of a neutron star and a stellar-mass black hole, can result in the formation of a massive rotating torus around a spinning black hole. In addition to providing collimating media for gamma-ray burst jets, unbound outflows from these disks are an important source of mass ejection and rapid neutron capture (r-process) nucleosynthesis. We present the first three-dimensional general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations of neutrino-cooled accretion disks in neutron star mergers, including a realistic equation of state valid at low densities and …
We present a comprehensive study of r-process element nucleosynthesis in the ejecta of compact binary mergers (CBMs) and their relic black-hole (BH)-torus systems. The evolution of the BH-accretion tori is simulated for seconds with a Newtonian hydrodynamics code including viscosity effects, pseudo-Newtonian gravity for rotating BHs, and an energy-dependent two-moment closure scheme for the transport of electron neutrinos and antineutrinos. The investigated cases are guided by relativistic double neutron star (NS-NS) and NS-BH merger models, producing ~3-6 Msun BHs with rotation parameters of …
During the merger of a black hole and a neutron star, baryonic mass can become unbound from the system. Because the ejected material is extremely neutron-rich, the r-process rapidly synthesizes heavy nuclides as the material expands and cools. In this work, we map general relativistic models of black hole-neutron star (BHNS) mergers into a Newtonian smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code and follow the evolution of the thermodynamics and morphology of the ejecta until the outflows become homologous. We investigate how the subsequent evolution depends on our mapping procedure and find that …
The determination of the mass, composition, and geometry of matter outflows in black hole-neutron star and neutron star-neutron star binaries is crucial to current efforts to model kilonovae, and to understand the role of neutron star merger in r-process nucleosynthesis. In this manuscript, we review the simple criteria currently used in merger simulations to determine whether matter is unbound and what the asymptotic velocity of ejected material will be. We then show that properly accounting for both heating and cooling during r-process nucleosynthesis is important to accurately predict the m…
Recent observations of quasars show high line-flux ratios in their broad emission lines and the ratios appear to be independent of redshift up to $z \gtrsim 6$, which indicate that the broad-line regions of these early quasars are surprisingly metal-rich. Here, we revisit the chemical evolution of high-redshift quasars by adding a new ingredient, i.e., the neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) with outflows, on top of the conventional core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). In the presence of the chemical contribution from NDAFs with outflows, the total metal mass (i.e., the summation of the co…
GRMHD Simulations of Accreting Proto-Magnetars II. Implications for r-process Nucleosynthesis
Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）；Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory（普林斯顿等离子体物理实验室）；Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute（计算天体物理学中心，富尔顿研究所）；Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto（加拿大理论天体物理研究所，多伦多大学）
Magnetic Eruption and Nucleosynthesis in GRνMHD Simulations of Spinning Neutron Star Mergers
Rochester Institute of Technology（罗切斯特理工学院）；University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）；INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova（意大利国家天体物理研究所帕多瓦天文台）；INFN, Sezione di Padova（意大利国家核物理研究所帕多瓦分部）
The ultrarelativistic jets responsible for prompt and afterglow emission in gamma ray bursts are presumably driven by a central engine that consists of a dense accretion disk around a spinning black hole. We consider such engine, composed of free nucleons, electron-positron pairs, Helium nuclei, and cooled by neutrino emission. A significant number density of neutrons in the disk provide conditions for neutron rich plasma in the outflows and jets. Heavy nuclei are also formed in the accretion flow, at the distances 150-250 gravitational radii from the black hole. We study the process of nucleo…
We present a systematic numerical relativity study of the mass ejection and the associated electromagnetic transients and nucleosynthesis from binary neutron star (NS) mergers. We find that a few $10^{-3}\, M_\odot$ of material are ejected dynamically during the mergers. The amount and the properties of these outflow depend on binary parameters and on the NS equation of state (EOS). A small fraction of these ejecta, typically ${\sim}10^{-6}\, M_\odot$, is accelerated by shocks formed shortly after merger to velocities larger than $0.6\, {\rm c}$ and produces bright radio flares on timescales o…
We study mass ejection from accretion disks formed in the merger of a white dwarf with a neutron star or black hole. These disks are mostly radiatively-inefficient and support nuclear fusion reactions, with ensuing outflows and electromagnetic transients. Here we perform time-dependent, axisymmetric hydrodynamic simulations of these disks including a physical equation of state, viscous angular momentum transport, a coupled $19$-isotope nuclear network, and self-gravity. We find no detonations in any of the configurations studied. Our global models extend from the central object to radii much l…
We investigate the ejecta from black hole - neutron star mergers by modeling the formation and interaction of mass ejected in a tidal tail and a disk wind. The outflows are neutron-rich, giving rise to optical/infrared emission powered by the radioactive decay of $r$-process elements (a kilonova). Here we perform an end-to-end study of this phenomenon, where we start from the output of a fully-relativistic merger simulation, calculate the post-merger hydrodynamical evolution of the ejecta and disk winds including neutrino physics, determine the final nucleosynthetic yields using post-processin…
The innermost ejecta of core-collapse supernovae are considered to be the sources of some iron-group and heavier nuclei. The ejecta are predominantly driven by neutrino heating, principally due to neutrino capture on free neutrons and protons. Such neutrino interaction plays a crucial role for setting neutron richness in the ejecta. Recent hydrodynamics work with sophisticated neutrino transport indicates that the ejecta are only mildly neutron rich or even proton rich. In such conditions a wide variety of trans-iron isotopes are synthesized, while the neutron richness is insufficient for the …
We consider the gamma ray burst (GRB) central engine that is powered by the collapse of a massive rotating star or compact binary merger. The engine is a hot and dense accretion disk, which is composed of free nucleons, electron-positron pairs, and helium, and cooled by neutrino emission. A significant number density of neutrons in the inner disk body provide conditions for neutron rich plasma in the GRB outflows or jets. Helium is synthesized in the inner disk if the accretion rate is large, and heavy nuclei are also formed in the outer disk at distances above 150-250 $r_{g}$ from the black h…
The heaviest elements in the Universe are synthesized through rapid neutron capture ($r$-process) in extremely neutron rich outflows. Neutron star mergers were established as an important $r$-process source through the multi-messenger observation of GW170817. Collapsars were also proposed as a potentially major source of heavy elements; however, this is difficult to probe through optical observations due to contamination by other emission mechanisms. Here we present observational constraints on $r$-process nucleosynthesis by collapsars based on radio follow-up observations of nearby long gamma…
We construct time-dependent one-dimensional (vertically averaged) models of accretion disks produced by the tidal disruption of a white dwarf (WD) by a binary neutron star (NS) companion. Nuclear reactions in the disk midplane burn the WD matter to increasingly heavier elements at sequentially smaller radii, releasing substantial energy which can impact the disk dynamics. A model for disk outflows is employed, by which cooling from the outflow balances other sources of heating (viscous, nuclear) in regulating the Bernoulli parameter of the midplane to a fixed value $\lesssim 0$. We perform a c…
The first neutron star (NS) merger observed by advanced LIGO and Virgo, GW170817, and its fireworks of electromagnetic counterparts across the entire electromagnetic spectrum marked the beginning of multi-messenger astronomy and astrophysics with gravitational waves. The ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared emission was consistent with being powered by the radioactive decay of nuclei synthesized in the merger ejecta by the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). Starting from an outline of the inferred properties of this 'kilonova' emission, I discuss possible astrophysical sites for r-p…
The imprint of individual neutron star spins on ejecta, $r$-process nucleosynthesis, and kilonovae in binary neutron star mergers
University of Southampton（南安普顿大学）；The Pennsylvania State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）；University of British Columbia（不列颠哥伦比亚大学）；University of Illinois（伊利诺伊大学）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）
The production of about half of the heavy elements found in nature is assigned to a specific astrophysical nucleosynthesis process: the rapid neutron capture process (r-process). Although this idea has been postulated more than six decades ago, the full understanding faces two types of uncertainties/open questions: (a) The nucleosynthesis path in the nuclear chart runs close to the neutron-drip line, where presently only limited experimental information is available, and one has to rely strongly on theoretical predictions for nuclear properties. (b) While for many years the occurrence of the r…
We explore heavy element nucleosynthesis in neutrino-driven winds from rapidly-rotating, strongly magnetized proto-neutron stars for which the magnetic dipole is aligned with the rotation axis, and the field is assumed to be a static force-free configuration. We process the proto-magnetar wind trajectories calculated by Vlasov et al 2014 through the r-process nuclear reaction network SkyNet using contemporary models for the evolution of the wind electron fraction during the proto-neutron star cooling phase. Although we do not find a successful second or third peak r-process for any rotation pe…
We present results from general relativistic calculations of the tidal disruption of white dwarf stars from near encounters with intermediate mass black holes. We follow the evolution of 0.2 and $0.6 M_\odot$ stars on parabolic trajectories that approach $10^3$ - $10^4 M_\odot$ black holes as close as a few Schwarzschild radii at periapsis, paying particular attention to the effect tidal disruption has on thermonuclear reactions and the synthesis of intermediate to heavy ion elements. These encounters create diverse thermonuclear environments characteristic of Type I supernovae and capable of …
The merger of two dense stellar remnants including at least one neutron star (NS) is predicted to produce gravitational waves (GWs) and short duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs). In the process, neutron-rich material is ejected from the system and heavy elements are synthesized by r-process nucleosynthesis. The radioactive decay of these heavy elements produces additional transient radiation termed "kilonova" or "macronova". We report the detection of linear optical polarization P = (0.50 +/- 0.07)% at 1.46 days after detection of the GWs from GW170817, a double neutron star merger associated wit…
