Production of all the r-process nuclides in the dynamical ejecta of neutron star mergers

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that binary neutron star (NS-NS) mergers robustly produce heavy r-process nuclei above the atomic mass number A 130 because their ejecta consist of almost pure neutrons (electron fraction of Ye < 0.1). However, the production of a small amount of the lighter r-process nuclei (A 90-120) conflicts with the spectroscopic results of r-process-enhanced Galactic halo stars. We present, for the first time, the result of nucleosynthesis calculations based on the fully general relativistic simulation of a NS-NS merger with approximate neutrino transport. It is found that the bulk of the dynamical ejecta are appreciably shock-heated and neutrino processed, resulting in a wide range of Y e (0.09-0.45). The mass-averaged abundance distribution of calculated nucleosynthesis yields is in reasonable agreement with the full-mass range (A 90-240) of the solar r-process curve. This implies, if our model is representative of such events, that the dynamical ejecta of NS-NS mergers could be the origin of the Galactic r-process nuclei. Our result also shows that radioactive heating after 1 day from the merging, which gives rise to r-process-powered transient emission, is dominated by the β-decays of several species close to stability with precisely measured half-lives. This implies that the total radioactive heating rate for such an event can be well constrained within about a factor of two if the ejected material has a solar-like r-process pattern. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..