Seminar

Kilonovae: The Glow From Merging Neutron Stars

November 19, 2015

Jennifer Barnes

In the final stages of a violent compact object merger, a small amount of matter is dynamically ejected from the system. This material, if sufficiently neutron rich, could produce heavy elements via rapid neutron capture (the r-process). The freshly synthesized heavy nuclei would then decay to stability, radioactively powering a dim electromagnetic transient called a kilonova. Kilonovae offer a clue to the as-yet undetermined site of r-process production. They are also a promising EM counterpart to the gravitational wave signals from merging compact objects, which Advanced LIGO/Virgo expect to detect routinely in the near future. Modeling kilonovae is challenging due to the uncertainties surrounding the r-process, the unknown optical properties of the merger ejecta, and the likelihood that multiple components contribute to the kilonova light curve. I will discuss recent progress in kilonova modeling, and explain how these developments may inform the search for r-process transients.

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