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Related papers: KilonovAE: Exploring Kilonova Spectral Features wi…

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Kilonovae are a rare class of astrophysical transients powered by the radioactive decay of nuclei heavier than iron, synthesized in the merger of two compact objects. Over the first few days, the kilonova evolution is dominated by a large…

Kilonovae, possible electromagnetic counterparts to neutron star mergers, provide important information about high-energy transient phenomena and, in principle, also allow us to obtain information about the source properties responsible for…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-03-28 Sahil Jhawar , Thibeau Wouters , Peter T. H. Pang , Mattia Bulla , Michael W. Coughlin , Tim Dietrich

Direct detection of gravitational waves (GW) on Aug. 17, 2017, propagating from a binary neutron star merger, opened the era of multimessenger astronomy. The ejected material from neutron star mergers, or kilonova, is a good candidate for…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2022-07-07 Z. S. Taghadomi , Y. Wan , A. Flowers , P. C. Stancil , B. M. McLaughlin , S. Bromley , J. P. Marler , C. E. Sosolik , S. Loch

Kilonovae (KNe) are one of the fastest types of optical transients known, cooling rapidly in the first few days following their neutron-star merger origin. We show here that KN spectral features go through rapid recombination transitions,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-08-14 Albert Sneppen , Darach Watson , James H. Gillanders , Kasper E. Heintz

We review current understanding of kilonova/macronova emission from compact binary mergers (mergers of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole). Kilonova/macronova is optical and near-infrared emission powered by radioactive…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-07-27 Masaomi Tanaka

With the increasing sensitivity of advanced gravitational wave detectors, the first joint detection of an electromagnetic and gravitational wave signal from a compact binary merger will hopefully happen within this decade. However, current…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-11-01 Michael Coughlin , Tim Dietrich , Kyohei Kawaguchi , Stephen Smartt , Christopher Stubbs , Maximiliano Ujevic

Detailed radiative transfer simulations of kilonovae are difficult to apply directly to observations; they only sparsely cover simulation parameters, such as the mass, velocity, morphology, and composition of the ejecta. On the other hand,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-07-21 M. Ristic , E. Champion , R. O'Shaughnessy , R. Wollaeger , O. Korobkin , E. A. Chase , C. L. Fryer , A. L. Hungerford , C. J. Fontes

Kilonovae are approximately thermal transients, produced by mergers of binary neutron stars (BNSs) and NS-black hole binaries. As the optical counterpart of the gravitational wave event GW170817, AT2017gfo is the first kilonova detected…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-04-25 Zheng-Yan Liu , Zhe-Yu Lin , Ji-Ming Yu , Hui-Yu Wang , Gibran-Marc Mourani , Wen Zhao , Zi-Gao Dai

We investigate $r$-process nucleosynthesis and kilonova emission resulting from binary neutron star (BNS) mergers based on a three-dimensional (3D) general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulation of a hypermassive neutron star…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-11-16 Sanjana Curtis , Philipp Mösta , Zhenyu Wu , David Radice , Luke Roberts , Giacomo Ricigliano , Albino Perego

Merging neutron stars produce "kilonovae"---electromagnetic transients powered by the decay of unstable nuclei synthesized via rapid neutron capture (the r-process) in material that is gravitationally unbound during inspiral and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-09-29 Jennifer Barnes , Y. L. Zhu , K. A. Lund , T. M. Sprouse , N. Vassh , G. C. McLaughlin , M. R. Mumpower , R. Surman

Observations of the kilonova from a neutron star merger event GW170817 opened a way to directly study r-process nucleosynthesis by neutron star mergers. It is, however, challenging to identify the individual elements in the kilonova spectra…

The kilonova associated with the neutron star merger GW170817 provides us with several hints to elucidate the nature of the r-process in the universe. In this article, we inspect the radioactive isotopes that powered the kilonova emission,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-11-06 Shinya Wanajo

The cosmic origin of the elements heavier than iron has long been uncertain. Theoretical modelling shows that the matter that is expelled in the violent merger of two neutron stars can assemble into heavy elements such as gold and platinum…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-10-17 Daniel Kasen , Brian Metzger , Jennifer Barnes , Eliot Quataert , Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz

Binary neutron star mergers and neutron star-black hole mergers are multi-messenger sources that can be detected in gravitational waves and in electromagnetic radiation. The low electron fraction of neutron star merger ejecta favors the…

The neutron star merger, GW170817, was followed by an optical-infrared transient (a kilonova) which indicated that a substantial ejection of mass at trans-relativistic velocities occurred during the merger. Modeling of the kilonova is able…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-06-19 Adithan Kathirgamaraju , Dimitrios Giannios , Paz Beniamini

Kilonovae represent a category of astrophysical transients, identifiable as the electromagnetic observable counterparts associated with the coalescence events of binary systems comprising neutron stars and neutron star-black hole pairs.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-04-01 P. Darc , Clecio R. Bom , Bernardo M. O. Fraga , Charlie D. Kilpatrick

Infrared emission lines arising from transitions between fine structure levels of heavy elements are expected to produce kilonova nebular emission. For the kilonova in GW170817, strong emission at 4.5 ${\rm \mu m}$ at late times was…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-08-03 Kenta Hotokezaka , Masaomi Tanaka , Daiji Kato , Gediminas Gaigalas

Kilonovae are optical transients following the merger of neutron star binaries, which are powered by the r-process heating of merger ejecta. However, if a merger remnant is a long-lived supramassive neutron star supported by its uniform…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-11-28 Hao Wang , Paz Beniamini , Dimitrios Giannios

The discovery of gravitational waves from a neutron star merger in 2017 (GW170817) and the associated kilonova (AT2017gfo) confirmed these events as key sites for heavy element production through the r-process. Subsequent observations,…

Atomic Physics · Physics 2025-09-11 Jérôme Deprince , Lucas Maison

The unprecedented optical and near-infrared lightcurves of the first electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave source, GW170817, a binary neutron star merger, exhibited a strong evolution from blue to near-infrared (a so-called…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2017-11-08 Christa Gall , Jens Hjorth , Stephan Rosswog , Nial R. Tanvir , Andrew J. Levan