The Relative Contribution to Heavy Metals Production from Binary Neutron Star Mergers and Neutron Star–Black Hole Mergers

Chen, Hsin-Yu; Vitale, Salvatore; Foucart, Francois

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac26c6

The Relative Contribution to Heavy Metals Production from Binary Neutron Star Mergers and Neutron Star–Black Hole Mergers

Journal Article · Mon Oct 25 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · The Astrophysical Journal. Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac26c6· OSTI ID:1981271

^[1]; ^[2]; ^[3]

Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). LIGO Laboratory; Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research; Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). LIGO Laboratory; Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)

The origin of the heavy elements in the universe is not fully determined. Neutron star–black hole (NSBH) and binary neutron star (BNS) mergers may both produce heavy elements via rapid neutron-capture (r-process). We use the recent detection of gravitational waves from NSBHs, improved measurements of the neutron star equation of state (EoS), and the most modern numerical simulations of ejected material from binary collisions to measure the relative contribution of NSBHs and BNSs to the production of heavy elements. As the amount of r-process ejecta depends on the mass and spin distribution of the compact objects, as well as on the EoS of the neutron stars, we consider various models for these quantities, informed by gravitational-wave and pulsar data. We find that in most scenarios, BNSs have produced more r-process elements than NSBHs over the past 2.5 billion years. If black holes have preferentially small spins, BNSs can produce at least twice the amount of r-process elements than NSBHs. If black hole spins are small and there is a dearth of low-mass (<5M_⊙) black holes within NSBH binaries, BNSs can account for the near totality of the r-process elements from binaries. For NSBH to produce a large fraction of r-process elements, black holes in NSBHs must have small masses and large aligned spins, which is disfavored by current data.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0020435

OSTI ID:: 1981271

Journal Information:: The Astrophysical Journal. Letters, Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal. Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 920; ISSN 2041-8205

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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