Neutron star - white dwarf mergers: Early evolution, physical properties, and outcomes

TL;DR

This study uses detailed simulations to explore the evolution and outcomes of neutron star-white dwarf mergers, revealing weak, rapidly-evolving transients with low energy and nickel production, distinct from typical supernovae.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive 2D hydrodynamical and nuclear-network simulations of NS-WD mergers, analyzing their physical properties and transient outcomes across various initial conditions.

Findings

Mergers produce weak, fast transients with energies of 10^{48}-10^{49} ergs.

Thermonuclear detonations occur but yield minimal energy and nickel ejecta.

Resulting transients are fainter and shorter than typical Type Ia supernovae.

Abstract

Neutron-star (NS) - white-dwarf (WD) mergers may give rise to observable explosive transients, but have been little explored. We use 2D coupled hydrodynamical-thermonuclear FLASH-code simulations to study the evolution of WD debris-disks formed following WD-disruptions by NSs. We use a 19-elements nuclear-network and a detailed equation-of-state to follow the evolution, complemented by a post-process analysis using a larger 125-isotopes nuclear-network. We consider a wide range of initial conditions and study the dependence of the results on the NS/WD masses ($1.4-2{\rm M_{\odot}}$;$\,{\rm 0.375-0.7\,M_{\odot}}$, respectively), WD-composition (CO/He/hybrid-He-CO) and the accretion-disk structure. We find that viscous inflow in the disk gives rise to continuous wind-outflow of mostly C/O material mixed with nuclear-burning products arising from a weak detonation occurring in the inner-region of the disk. We find that such transients are energetically weak ($10^{48}-10^{49}$ergs) compared with thermonuclear-supernovae (SNe), and are dominated by the (gravitational) accretion-energy. Although thermonuclear-detonations occur robustly in all of our simulations (besides the He-WD) they produce only little energy $(1-10\%$ of the kinetic energy) and $^{56}{\rm Ni}$ ejecta (few$\times10^{-4}-10^{-3}{\rm M_{\odot}})$, with overall low ejecta masses of $\sim0.01-0.1{\rm M_{\odot}}$. Such explosions may produce rapidly-evolving transients, much shorter and fainter than regular type-Ia SNe. The composition and demographics of such SNe appear to be inconsistent with those of Ca-rich type Ib SNe. Though they might be related to the various classes of rapidly evolving SNe observed in recent years, they are likely to be fainter than the typical ones, and may therefore give rise a different class of potentially observable transients.