REVERSE SHOCK EMISSION AND IONIZATION BREAKOUT POWERED BY POST-MERGER MILLISECOND MAGNETARS
- School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China)
- Institute of Astrophysics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079 (China)
There is accumulating evidence that at least a fraction of binary neutron star (BNS) mergers result in rapidly spinning magnetars, with subrelativistic neutron-rich ejecta as massive as a small fraction of a solar mass. The ejecta could be heated continuously by the Poynting flux emanated from the central magnetars. Such a Poynting flux could become lepton dominated so that a reverse shock develops. It was demonstrated that such a picture is capable of accounting for the optical transient PTF11agg. In this paper we investigate the X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) radiation, as well as the optical and radio radiation studied by Wang and Dai. UV emission is particularly important because it has the right energy to ionize the hot ejecta at times t ≲ 600 s. It is thought that the ejecta of BNS mergers are a remarkably pure sample of r-process material, about which our understanding is still incomplete. In this paper we evaluate the possibility of observationally determining the bound-bound and bound-free opacities of the r-process material by timing the X-ray, UV, and optical radiation. It is found that these timings depend on the opacities weakly, and therefore only loose constraints on the opacities can be obtained.
- OSTI ID:
- 22364175
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 800, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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