Astrophysics

The nebular phase of lanthanide-rich ejecta of a neutron star merger (NSM) is studied by using a one-zone model, in which the atomic properties are represented by a single species, neodymium (Nd). Under the assumption that beta-decay of r-process nuclei is the heat and ionization source, we solve the ionization and thermal balance of the ejecta under non-local thermodynamic equilibrium. The atomic data including energy levels, radiative transition rates, collision strengths, and recombination rate coefficients, are obtained by using atomic structure codes, GRASP2K and HULLAC. We find that both permitted and forbidden lines roughly equally contribute to the cooling rate of Nd II and Nd III at the nebular temperatures. We show that the kinetic temperature and ionization degree increase with time in the early stage of the nebular phase while these quantities become approximately independent of time after the thermalization break of the heating rate because the processes relevant to the ionization and thermalization balance are attributed to two-body collision between electrons and ions at later times. As a result, in spite of the rapid decline of the luminosity, the shape of the emergent spectrum does not change significantly with time after the break. We show that the emission-line nebular spectrum of the pure Nd ejecta consists of a broad structure from 0.5μm to 20μm with two distinct peaks around 1μm and 10μm .

Black-hole (BH) accretion disks formed in compact-object mergers or collapsars may be major sites of the rapid-neutron-capture (r-)process, but the conditions determining the electron fraction (Y_e) remain uncertain given the complexity of neutrino transfer and angular-momentum transport. After discussing relevant weak-interaction regimes, we study the role of neutrino absorption for shaping Y_e using an extensive set of simulations performed with two-moment neutrino transport and again without neutrino absorption. We vary the torus mass, BH mass and spin, and examine the impact of rest-mass and weak-magnetism corrections in the neutrino rates. We also test the dependence on the angular-momentum transport treatment by comparing axisymmetric models using the standard alpha-viscosity with viscous models assuming constant viscous length scales (l_t) and three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. Finally, we discuss the nucleosynthesis yields and basic kilonova properties. We find that absorption pushes Y_e towards ~0.5 outside the torus, while inside increasing the equilibrium value Y_e^eq by ~0.05--0.2. Correspondingly, a substantial ejecta fraction is pushed above Y_e=0.25, leading to a reduced lanthanide fraction and a brighter, earlier, and bluer kilonova than without absorption. More compact tori with higher neutrino optical depth, tau, tend to have lower Y_e^eq up to tau~1-10, above which absorption becomes strong enough to reverse this trend. Disk ejecta are less (more) neutron-rich when employing an l_t=const. viscosity (MHD treatment). The solar-like abundance pattern found for our MHD model marginally supports collapsar disks as major r-process sites, although a strong r-process may be limited to phases of high mass-infall rates, Mdot>~ 2 x 10^(-2) Msun/s.

Microquasars (MQs) are binary systems composed by a star feeding mass to a compact object through an accretion disk. The compact object, usually a black hole, launches oppositely directed jets which are typically observed in our galaxy through their broadband electromagnetic emission. These jets are considered potential galactic neutrino sources. MQs can also have been formed by the first generations of stars in the universe, i.e., Population III (Pop III) stars, which are considered essential contributors to the ionization processes that took place during the period of 'cosmic reionization'. In the present work, we develop a model that accounts for the main particle processes occurring within Pop III MQ jets, with the aim to obtain the diffuse neutrino flux at the Earth [...] We find that, for a range of parameters suitable for Pop III MQ jets, the most relevant site for neutrino production in the jets is the base of the inner conical jet. Additionally, if protons accelerated at the forward shock formed at terminal jet region can escape from the outer shell, they would produce further neutrinos via pγ interactions with the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The latter contribution to the diffuse neutrino flux turns out to be dominant in the range 10 7 GeV??E ν ??10 9 GeV , while the neutrinos produced in the inner jet could only account for a small fraction of the IceCube flux for E ν ??10 5 GeV. The co-produced multiwavelength photon background is also computed and it is checked to be in agreement with observations.

Long duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the least understood astrophysical transients powering the high-energy universe. To date, various mechanisms have been proposed to explain the observed electromagnetic GRB emission. In this work, we show that, although different jet models may be equally successful in fitting the observed electromagnetic spectral energy distributions, the neutrino production strongly depends on the adopted emission and dissipation model. To this purpose, we compute the neutrino production for a benchmark high-luminosity GRB in the internal shock model, including a dissipative photosphere as well as three emission components, in the jet model invoking internal-collision-induced magnetic reconnection and turbulence (ICMART), in the case of a magnetic jet with gradual dissipation, and in a jet with dominant proton synchrotron radiation. We find that the expected neutrino fluence can vary up to three orders of magnitude in amplitude and peak at energies ranging from 10 4 to 10 8 GeV. For our benchmark input parameters, none of the explored GRB models is excluded by the targeted searches carried out by the IceCube and ANTARES Collaborations. However, our work highlights the potential of high-energy neutrinos of pinpointing the underlying GRB emission mechanism and the importance of relying on different jet models for unbiased stacking searches.

In this review paper, we present the main aspects of high-energy cosmic neutrino astrophysics. We begin by describing the generic expectations for cosmic neutrinos, including the effects of propagation from their sources to the detectors. Then we introduce the operating principles of current neutrino telescopes, and examine the main features (topologies) of the observable events. After a discussion of the main background processes, due to the concomitant presence of secondary particles produced in the terrestrial atmosphere by cosmic rays, we summarize the current status of the observations with astrophysical relevance that have been greatly contributed by IceCube detector. Then, we examine various interpretations of these findings, trying to assess the best candidate sources of cosmic neutrinos. We conclude with a brief perspective on how the field could evolve within a few years.

Tidal disruption events are an excellent probe for supermassive black holes in distant inactive galaxies because they show bright multi-wavelength flares lasting several months to years. AT2019dsg presents the first potential association with neutrino emission from such an explosive event.

We explore in general relativity the survival time of neutron stars that host an endoparasitic, possibly primordial, black hole at their center. Corresponding to the minimum steady-state Bondi accretion rate for adiabatic flow that we found earlier for stiff nuclear equations of state (EOSs), we derive analytically the maximum survival time after which the entire star will be consumed by the black hole. We also show that this maximum survival time depends only weakly on the stiffness for polytropic EOSs with ???/3 , so that this survival time assumes a nearly universal value that depends on the initial black hole mass alone. Establishing such a value is important for constraining the contribution of primordial black holes in the mass range 10 ??6 M ???�M??10 ??0 M ??to the dark-matter content of the Universe.

With the recent release of the second gravitational-wave transient catalogue (GWTC-2), which introduced dozens of new detections, we are at a turning point of gravitational wave astronomy, as we are now able to directly infer constraints on the astrophysical population of compact objects. Here, we tackle the burning issue of understanding the origin of binary black hole (BBH) mergers. To this effect, we make use of state-of-the art population synthesis and N-body simulations, to represent two distinct formation channels: BBHs formed in the field (isolated channel) and in young star clusters (dynamical channel). We then use a Bayesian hierarchical approach to infer the distribution of the mixing fraction f , with f=0 ( f=1 ) in the pure dynamical (isolated) channel. We explore the effects of additional hyper-parameters of the model, such as the spread in metallicity ? Z and the parameter ? sp , describing the distribution of spin magnitudes. We find that the dynamical model is slightly favoured with a median value of f=0.26 , when ? sp =0.1 and ? Z =0.4 . Models with higher spin magnitudes tend to strongly favour dynamically formed BBHs ( f??.1 if ? sp =0.3 ). Furthermore, we show that hyper-parameters controlling the rates of the model, such as ? Z , have a large impact on the inference of the mixing fraction, which rises from 0.18 to 0.43 when we increase ? Z from 0.2 to 0.6, for a fixed value of ? sp =0.1 . Finally, our current set of observations is better described by a combination of both formation channels, as a pure dynamical scenario is excluded at the 99% credible interval, except when the spin magnitude is high.

The environments of explosive transients link their progenitors to the underlying stellar population, providing critical clues for their origins. However, some Ca-rich supernovae (SNe) and short gamma ray burst (sGRBs) appear to be located at remote locations, far from the stellar population of their host galaxy, challenging our understanding of their origin and/or physical evolution. These findings instigated models suggesting that either large velocity kicks were imparted to their progenitors, allowing them to propagate to large distances and attain their remote locations; or that they formed in dense globular clusters residing in the halos. Here we show that instead, the large spatial-offsets of these transients are naturally explained by the observations of highly extended underlying stellar populations in (mostly early type) galaxy halos, typically missed since they can only be identified through ultra-deep/stacked images. Consequently, no large velocity kicks, nor halo globular cluster environments are required in order to explain the origin of these transients. These findings support thermonuclear explosions on white-dwarfs, for the origins of Ca-rich SNe progenitors, and no/small-natal-kicks given to sGRB progenitors. Since early-type galaxies contain older stellar populations, transient arising from older stellar populations would have larger fractions of early-type galaxy hosts, and consequently larger fractions of transients at large offsets. This is verified by our results for sGRBs and Ca-rich SNe showing different offset distributions in early vs. late-type galaxies. Furthermore, once divided between early and late type galaxies, the offsets' distributions of the different transients are consistent with each other. Finally, we point out that studies of other transients' offset distribution (e.g. Ia-SNe or FRBs) should similarly consider the host galaxy-type.

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) span a range of luminosities and timescales, from rapidly evolving subluminous to slowly evolving overluminous subtypes. Previous theoretical work has, for the most part, been unable to match the entire breadth of observed SNe Ia with one progenitor scenario. Here, for the first time, we apply non-local thermodynamic equilibrium radiative transfer calculations to a range of accurate explosion models of sub-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf detonations. The resulting photometry and spectra are in excellent agreement with the range of observed non-peculiar SNe Ia through 15 d after the time of B-band maximum, yielding one of the first examples of a quantitative match to the entire Phillips (1993) relation. The intermediate-mass element velocities inferred from theoretical spectra at maximum light for the more massive white dwarf explosions are higher than those of bright observed SNe Ia, but these and other discrepancies likely stem from the one-dimensional nature of our explosion models and will be improved upon by future non-local thermodynamic equilibrium radiation transport calculations of multi-dimensional sub-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf detonations.