Related papers: How would a nearby kilonova look on camera?
We present a semi-analytic model for predicting kilonova light curves from the mergers of neutron stars with black holes (NSBH). The model is integrated into the MOSFiT platform, and can generate light curves from input binary properties…
A binary neutron star merger is expected to be associated by a kilonova, transient optical emission powered by radioactive decay of the neutron-rich ejecta. If the post-merger remnant is a long-lived neutron star, additional energy…
Core-collapse supernovae are among the most magnificent events in the observable universe. They produce many of the chemical elements necessary for life to exist and their remnants -- neutron stars and black holes -- are interesting…
We describe a simple procedure to estimate the high-energy neutrino flux from the observed gamma-ray spectra of galactic cosmic ray sources that are transparent to their gamma radiation. We evaluate in this way the neutrino flux from the…
A neo-neutron star is a hot neutron star that has just become transparent to neutrinos. In a core collapse supernova or accretion induced collapse of a white dwarf the neo-neutron star phase directly follows the proto-neutron star phase,…
Kilonovae are a novel class of astrophysical transients, and the only observationally-confirmed site of rapid neutron capture nucleosynthesis (the r-process) in the Universe. To date, only a handful of kilonovae have been detected, with…
A key question in astronomy is how ubiquitous Earth-like rocky planets are. The formation of terrestrial planets in our solar system was strongly influenced by the radioactive decay heat of short-lived radionuclides (SLRs), particularly…
Large, high-energy ($E>100$ GeV) cosmic neutrino telescopes are now quite mature. IceCube, for example, observes about 50,000 well-reconstructed single atmospheric neutrino events/year, with energies above 100 GeV. Although the neutrino…
Many neutron stars are observed to be moving with spatial velocities, in excess of 500km/s. A number of mechanisms have been proposed to give neutron stars these high velocities. One of the leading classes of models proposed invokes…
A long-standing paradigm in astrophysics is that collisions- or mergers- of two neutron stars (NSs) form highly relativistic and collimated outflows (jets) powering gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) of short (< 2 s) duration. However, the…
Double Neutron Stars (DNS) have to survive two supernovae and still remain bound. This sets strong limits on the nature of the second collapse in these systems. We consider the masses and orbital parameters of the DNS population and…
The discovery of a transient kilonova following the gravitational-wave event GW170817 highlighted the critical need for coordinated rapid and wide-field observations, inference, and follow-up across the electromagnetic spectrum. In the…
The observed excess of high-energy cosmic rays from the Galactic plane in the energy range \sim 10^18 eV may be naturally explained by neutron primaries generated in the photo-dissociation of heavy nuclei. In this scenario, neutrons with…
High energy cosmic ray jets from nearby mergers or accretion induced collapse (AIC) of neutron stars (NS) that hit the atmosphere can produce lethal fluxes of atmospheric muons at ground level, underground and underwater, destroy the ozone…
Mergers of double neutron stars (DNSs) could lead to the formation of a long-lived massive remnant NS, which has been previously suggested to explain the AT 2017gfo kilonova emission in the famous GW170817 event. For an NS-affected…
Monte Carlo simulations of Galactic Supernovae are carried out to study the rate of nearby events, which may have a direct effect on Earth's ecology though ionizing radiation and cosmic ray bombardment. A nearby supernova may have left a…
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…
Among the various classes of fast optical transients (FOTs), kilonovae (KNe), which can emerge as a result of neutron star mergers, are extremely challenging to observe because of not only the rapid timescale on which they fade (on the…
Neutron stars, just after their formation, are surrounded by expanding, dense, and very hot envelopes which radiate thermal photons. Iron nuclei can be accelerated in the wind zones of such energetic pulsars to very high energies. These…
A model of the optical light detected following the merger of two neutron stars reveals polarization to be a unique probe of the geometry of the kilonova explosion that accompanied the gravitational waves.