Magnetized Outflows from Short-lived Neutron Star Merger Remnants Can Produce a Blue Kilonova

Curtis, Sanjana; Bosch, Pablo; Mösta, Philipp; Radice, David; Bernuzzi, Sebastiano; Perego, Albino; Haas, Roland; Schnetter, Erik

doi:10.6082/ym11k-wvh24

Published January 18, 2024 | Version v1

Journal article Open

Magnetized Outflows from Short-lived Neutron Star Merger Remnants Can Produce a Blue Kilonova

1. University of Chicago
2. University of Amsterdam
3. Pennsylvania State University
4. Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
5. Universitá di Trento
6. University of Illinois
7. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

We present a 3D general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a short-lived neutron star remnant formed in the aftermath of a binary neutron star merger. The simulation uses an M1 neutrino transport scheme to track neutrino–matter interactions and is well suited to studying the resulting nucleosynthesis and kilonova emission. A magnetized wind is driven from the remnant and ejects neutron-rich material at a quasi-steady-state rate of 0.8 × 10⁻¹M_⊙s⁻¹. We find that the ejecta in our simulations underproduce r-process abundances beyond the second r-process peak. For sufficiently long-lived remnants, these outflows alone can produce blue kilonovae, including the blue kilonova component observed for AT2017gfo.

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