Résumé / Abstract Journal-club_Hautes_Energies

Séminaire Hautes Energies /
Seminar High Energy

« Compact object mergers as probes of the origins of heavy elements »

Ben Gompertz
School Physics Space Research, Univ. Birmingham (Birmingham, Royaume-Uni)

Compact object mergers are believed to be significant, if not the dominant contributors to Universal r-process enrichment. Thanks to combined gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations of GW170817, we now know that the merger of a neutron star binary produces a short gamma-ray burst. Its associated kilonova, AT2017gfo, provided our best view yet of thermal emission from heavy element nucleosynthesis. I will show that applying this template to existing kilonova candidates in the short GRB population implies that there is a significant diversity in the r-process yield from a neutron star binary merger. I will also discuss the possibility that neutron star - black hole mergers contribute to the observed population of short GRBs, and what that might mean for the r-process budget.


jeudi 22 avril 2021 - 13:30
Webinaire
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Pages web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage