No Arabic abstract
We investigate the long-term evolution and observability of remnants originating from the merger of compact binary systems and discuss the differences to supernova remnants. Compact binary mergers expel much smaller amounts of mass at much higher velocities, as compared to supernovae, which will affect the dynamical evolution of their remnants. The ejecta of mergers consist of very neutron rich nuclei. Some of these neutron rich nuclei will produce observational signatures in form of gamma ray lines during their decay. The composition of the ejecta might even give interesting constraints about the internal structure of the neutron star. We further discuss the possibility that merger remnants appear as recently discovered dark accelerators which are extended TeV sources which lack emission in other bands.
We carry out a comprehensive smooth particle hydrodynamics simulation survey of double-degenerate white dwarf binary mergers of varying mass combinations in order to establish correspondence between initial conditions and remnant configurations. We find that all but one of our simulation remnants share general properties such as a cold, degenerate core surrounded by a hot disk, while our least massive pair of stars forms only a hot disk. We characterize our remnant configurations by the core mass, the rotational velocity of the core, and the half-mass radius of the disk. We also find that some of our simulations with very massive constituent stars exhibit helium detonations on the surface of the primary star before complete disruption of the secondary. However, these helium detonations are insufficiently energetic to ignite carbon, and so do not lead to prompt carbon detonations.
The first detection of a binary neutron star merger through gravitational waves and photons marked the dawn of multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves, and it greatly increased our insight in different fields of astrophysics and fundamental physics. However, many open questions on the physical process involved in a compact binary merger still remain and many of these processes concern plasma physics. With the second generation of gravitational wave interferometers approaching their design sensitivity, the new generation under design study, and new X-ray detectors under development, the high energy Universe will become more and more a unique laboratory for our understanding of plasma in extreme conditions. In this review, we discuss the main electromagnetic signals expected to follow the merger of two compact objects highlighting the main physical processes involved and some of the most important open problems in the field.
We study high-energy emission from the mergers of neutron star binaries as electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves aside from short gamma-ray bursts. The mergers entail significant mass ejection, which interacts with the surrounding medium to produce similar but brighter remnants than supernova remnants in a few years. We show that electrons accelerated in the remnants can produce synchrotron radiation in X-rays detectable at $sim 100$ Mpc by current generation telescopes and inverse Compton emission in gamma rays detectable by the emph{Fermi} Large Area Telescopes and the Cherenkov Telescope Array under favorable conditions. The remnants may have already appeared in high-energy surveys such as the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image and the emph{Fermi} Large Area Telescope as unidentified sources. We also suggest that the merger remnants could be the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays beyond the knee energy, $sim 10^{15}$ eV, in the cosmic-ray spectrum.
We investigate the long-term evolution and observability of remnants originating from the merger of compact binary systems and discuss the differences to supernova remnants. Compact binary mergers expel much smaller amounts of mass at much higher velocities, as compared to supernovae and therefore the free expansion phase of the remnant will be short (~ 1 - 10 yr). In general the remnants will be observable for a considerable time (~ 10^6 - 10^7 yr). Events releasing large amounts of kinetic energy may be responsible for a subsample of observed giant HI holes of unknown origin as compact binaries merge far away from star forming regions. If the ejecta consist primarily of actinides, on long timescales the expelled material will contain mainly the few quasi-stable nuclei in the actinides range. Consequently the abundance of each isotope in the ejecta might be of the order of a few percent. During their decay some actinides will produce observational signatures in form of gamma ray lines. We particularly investigate the gamma ray emission of Am 243, Cm 247, Cm 248 and Bi 208 and estimate their observability in nearby remnants. Detections of the gamma ray lines with INTEGRAL will be possible only in very advantageous cases but these remnants are promising targets for future instruments using focusing optics for soft gamma rays. Due to the low mass expelled in mergers and due to the lack of free electrons in the ejecta, the merger remnants might be significantly fainter in bremsstrahlung and synchrotron radiation than comparable supernova remnants. Hence merger remnants might represent a candidate for very recently discovered dark accelerators which are hard gamma ray sources with no apparent emission in other bands.
We review current understanding of kilonova/macronova emission from compact binary mergers (mergers of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole). Kilonova/macronova is optical and near-infrared emission powered by radioactive decays of r-process nuclei. Emission from the dynamical ejecta with ~0.01 Msun is likely to have a luminosity of ~10^{40}-10^{41} erg s^{-1} with a characteristic timescale of about 1 week. The spectral peak is located in red optical or near-infrared wavelengths. A subsequent accretion disk wind may provide an additional luminosity, or an earlier/bluer emission if it is not absorbed by the precedent dynamical ejecta. The detection of near-infrared excess in the afterglow of short GRB 130603B and possible optical excess in GRB 060614 supports the concept of the kilonova/macronova scenario. At 200 Mpc distance, a typical brightness of kilonova/macronova with 0.01 Msun ejecta is expected to be about 22 mag and the emission rapidly fades to >24 mag within ~10 days after the merger. Kilonova/macronova candidates can be distinguished from supernovae by (1) the faster time evolution, (2) fainter absolute magnitudes, and (3) redder colors. To effectively search for such objects, follow-up survey observations with multiple visits within <10 days and with multiple filters will be important. Since the high expansion velocity (v ~ 0.1-0.2c) is a robust outcome of compact binary mergers, the detection of smooth spectra will be the smoking gun to conclusively identify the GW source.