Emergent Nucleosynthesis from a 1.2 s Long Simulation of a Black Hole Accretion Disk

Technical Report · 10 February 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2377695· OSTI ID:2377695

Sprouse, Trevor Michael ^[1]; Lund, Kelsey Alexandra ^[2]; Miller, Jonah Maxwell ^[1]; McLaughlin, Gail C. ^[3]; Mumpower, Matthew Ryan ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
2. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS); North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (United States)
3. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (United States)

We simulate a black hole accretion disk system with full-transport general relativistic neutrino radiation magnetohydrodynamics for 1.2 s. This system is likely to form after the merger of two compact objects and is thought to be a robust site of r-process nucleosynthesis. We consider the case of a black hole accretion disk arising from the merger of two neutron stars. Our simulation time coincides with the nucleosynthesis timescale of the r-process (~1 s). Because these simulations are time-consuming, it is common practice to run for a “short” duration of approximately 0.1–0.3 s. We analyze the nucleosynthetic outflow from this system and compare the results of stopping at 0.12 and 1.2 s. We find that the addition of mass ejected in the longer simulation as well as more favorable thermodynamic conditions from emergent viscous ejecta greatly impacts the nucleosynthetic outcome. We quantify the error in nucleosynthetic outcomes between short and long cuts.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR). Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP); National Science Foundation (NSF)
• DOE Contract Number: 89233218CNA000001; FG02-02ER41216; AC52-07NA27344; FG02-00ER41132
• OSTI ID: 2377695
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--24-21289
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY