The Radiative Transfer and Atomic Physics of Kilonovae

Session

Wednesday afternoon

6 Sept 2023, 14:10

Wenner-Gren Center

37. Spectral features of kilonova in photospheric phase

Nanae Domoto (Tohoku University)

06/09/2023, 14:10

Spectra of kilonovae, radioactively-powered electromagnetic radiation from neutron star mergers, provide us with information of r-process nucleosynthesis. In the photospheric phase, which photons diffuse out from optically thick matter, absorption features in the spectra can be used to identify individual elements. However, the decode of the spectra for the first detected kilonova...

13. Discovery of a 760 nm P Cygni line in AT2017gfo: Identification of yttrium in the kilonova

Albert Sneppen (Niels Bohr Institute, The Cosmic DAWN Center)

06/09/2023, 15:05

Contributed talk

Neutron star mergers are believed to be a major cosmological source of rapid neutron-capture elements, but only limited definite spectral identifiers of these heavy elements have been found. Identifying P$\,$Cygni lines are important because they provide significant information not just potentially on the elemental composition of the merger ejecta, but also on the velocity, geometry, and...

22. HEAVY ELEMENT OPACITY CALCULATIONS FOR KILONOVA MODELING

Patrick Palmeri (Université de Mons - UMONS)

06/09/2023, 15:25

Contributed talk

The production of elements heavier than iron in the Universe still remains an unsolved mystery. About half of them are thought to be notably produced by the astrophysical r-process (rapid neutron-capture process) [1], for which one of the most promising production sites are neutron star mergers (NSM) [2]. In August 2017, gravitational waves generated by a NSM event were detected by the LIGO...

24. Modelling the spectra of the kilonova AT2017gfo across all phases

James Gillanders (University of Rome - Tor Vergata)

Contributed talk

The spectroscopic data obtained for AT2017gfo remain the only spectral observations of a kilonova event. These data, despite being obtained ~6 years ago, are still not fully understood, and still contain a number of unexplored features. Composition studies investigating the abundance of the synthesised r-process material have proven challenging to undertake. Proposed identifications of...