Neutrino transport in black hole-neutron star binaries: neutrino emission and dynamical mass ejection

TL;DR

This study uses advanced simulations to analyze neutrino emission and mass ejection in black hole-neutron star mergers, finding that ejecta are extremely neutron-rich and likely support strong r-process nucleosynthesis, with neutrino effects being minimal.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed neutrino-radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of black hole-neutron star mergers, highlighting the limited impact of neutrino irradiation on ejecta composition.

Findings

Neutrino luminosity peaks at 1-3x10^53 erg/s.

Ejecta remain very neutron-rich, favoring r-process nucleosynthesis.

Neutrino irradiation has minimal effect on ejecta electron fraction.

Abstract

We study the merger of black hole-neutron star binaries by fully general-relativistic neutrino-radiation-hydrodynamics simulations throughout the coalescence, particularly focusing on the role of neutrino irradiation in dynamical mass ejection. Neutrino transport is incorporated by an approximate transfer scheme based on the truncated moment formalism. While we fix the mass ratio of the black hole to the neutron star to be 4 and the dimensionless spin parameter of the black hole to be 0.75, the equations of state for finite-temperature neutron-star matter are varied. The hot accretion disk formed after tidal disruption of the neutron star emits a copious amount of neutrinos with the peak total luminosity ~1--3x10^53 erg s^(-1) via thermal pair production and subsequent electron/positron captures on free nucleons. Nevertheless, the neutrino irradiation does not modify significantly the electron fraction of the dynamical ejecta from the neutrinoless beta-equilibrium value at zero temperature of initial neutron stars. The mass of the wind component driven by neutrinos from the remnant disk is negligible compared to the very neutron-rich dynamical component, throughout our simulations performed until a few tens milliseconds after the onset of merger, for the models considered in this study. These facts suggest that the ejecta from black hole-neutron star binaries are very neutron rich and are expected to accommodate strong r-process nucleosynthesis, unless magnetic or viscous processes contribute substantially to the mass ejection from the disk. We also find that the peak neutrino luminosity does not necessarily increase as the disk mass increases, because tidal disruption of a compact neutron star can result in a remnant disk with a small mass but high temperature.