arXiv subjects

Gail McLaughlin

Publications and source records attributed to Gail McLaughlin.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Magnetic Field Strength Effects on Nucleosynthesis from Neutron Star Merger Outflows

Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence drives the central engine of post-merger remnants, potentially powering both a nucleosynthetically active disk wind and the relativistic jet behind a short gamma ray burst. We explore the impact of the magnetic field on this engine by simulating three post-merger black hole accretion disks using general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics with Monte Carlo neutrino transport, in each case varying the initial magnetic field strength. We find increasing ejecta masses associated with increasing magnetic field strength. We find that a fairly robust main r -process pattern is produced in all three cases, scaled by the ejected mass. Changing the initial magnetic field strength has a considerable effect on the geometry of the outflow and hints at complex central engine dynamics influencing lanthanide outflows. We find that actinide production is especially sensitive to magnetic field strength, with overall actinide mass fraction calculated at 1 Gyr post-merger increasing by more than a factor of six with a tenfold increase in magnetic field strength. This hints at a possible connection to the variability in actinide enhancements exhibited by metal poor, r -process-enhanced stars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Two-Moment Neutrino Flavor Transformation with applications to the Fast Flavor Instability in Neutron Star Mergers

Multi-messenger astrophysics has produced a wealth of data with much more to come in the future. This enormous data set will reveal new insights into the physics of core collapse supernovae, neutron star mergers, and many other objects where it is actually possible, if not probable, that new physics is in operation. To tease out different possibilities, we will need to analyze signals from photons, neutrinos, gravitational waves, and chemical elements. This task is made all the more difficult when it is necessary to evolve the neutrino component of the radiation field and associated quantum-mechanical property of flavor in order to model the astrophysical system of interest -- a numerical challenge that has not been addressed to this day. In this work, we take a step in this direction by adopting the technique of angular-integrated moments with a truncated tower of dynamical equations and a closure, convolving the flavor-transformation with spatial transport to evolve the neutrino radiation quantum field. We show that moments capture the dynamical features of fast flavor instabilities in a variety of systems, although our technique is by no means a universal blueprint for solving fast flavor transformation. To evaluate the effectiveness of our moment results, we compare to a more precise particle-in-cell method. Based on our results, we propose areas for improvement and application to complementary techniques in the future.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

Neutrino flavor mixing with moments

The successful transition from core-collapse supernova simulations using classical neutrino transport to simulations using quantum neutrino transport will require the development of methods for calculating neutrino flavor transformations that mitigate the computational expense. One potential approach is the use of angular moments of the neutrino field, which has the added appeal that there already exist simulation codes which make use of moments for classical neutrino transport. Evolution equations for quantum moments based on the quantum kinetic equations can be straightforwardly generalized from the evolution of classical moments based on the Boltzmann equation. We present an efficient implementation of neutrino transformation using quantum angular moments in the free streaming, spherically symmetric bulb model. We compare the results against analytic solutions and the results from more exact multi-angle neutrino flavor evolution calculations. We find that our moment-based methods employing scalar closures predict, with good accuracy, the onset of collective flavor transformations seen in the multi-angle results. However in some situations they overestimate the coherence of neutrinos traveling along different trajectories. More sophisticated quantum closures may improve the agreement between the inexpensive moment-based methods and the multi-angle approach.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Using excitation-energy dependent fission yields to identify key fissioning nuclei in r-process nucleosynthesis

We evaluate the impact of using sets of fission yields given by the GEF code for spontaneous (sf), neutron-induced ((n,f)), and beta-delayed (betadf) fission processes which take into account the approximate initial excitation energy of the fissioning compound nucleus. We further explore energy-dependent fission dynamics in the r process by considering the sensitivity of our results to the treatment of the energy sharing and de-excitation of the fission fragments using the FREYA code. We show that the asymmetric-to-symmetric yield trends predicted by GEF can reproduce the high-mass edge of the second r-process peak seen in solar data and examine the sensitivity of this result to the mass model and astrophysical conditions applied. We consider the effect of fission yields and barrier heights on the nuclear heating rates used to predict kilonova light curves. We find that fission barriers influence the contribution of 254Cf spontaneous fission to the heating at ~100 days, such that a light curve observation consistent with such late-time heating would both confirm that actinides were produced in the event and imply the fission barriers are relatively high along the 254Cf beta-feeding path. We lastly determine the key nuclei responsible for setting the r-process abundance pattern by averaging over thirty trajectories from a 1.2--1.4 M_odot neutron star merger simulation. We show it is largely the odd-N nuclei undergoing (Z,N)(n,f) and (Z,N)betadf that control the relative abundances near the second peak. We find the "hot spots" for beta-delayed and neutron-induced fission given all mass models considered and show most of these nuclei lie between the predicted N=184 shell closure and the location of currently available experimental decay data.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2011

Formation Of The Rare Earth Peak: Gaining Insight Into Late-Time r-Process Dynamics

We study the formation and final structure of the rare earth peak ($A\sim160$) of the $r$-process nucleosynthesis. The rare earth peak forms at late times in the $r$-process after neutron exhaustion (neutron-to-seed ratio unity or R=1) as matter decays back to stability. Since rare earth peak formation does not occur during \nggn \ equilibrium it is sensitive to the strong interplay between late time thermodynamic evolution and nuclear physics input. Depending on the conditions the peak forms either because of the pattern of the neutron capture rates or because of the pattern of the separation energies. We analyze three mass models under different thermodynamic conditions. We find that the subtleties of each mass model, including separation energies and neutron capture rates, influence not only the final shape of the peak but also when it forms. We identify the range of nuclei which are influential in rare earth peak formation.

nucl-th↗