The landscape of disk outflows from black hole - neutron star mergers

Understand

We investigate mass ejection from accretion disks formed in mergers of black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs).

• The third observing run of the LIGO/Virgo interferometers provided BH-NS candidate events that yielded no electromagnetic (EM) counterparts.
• The broad range of disk configurations expected from BH-NS mergers motivates a thorough exploration of parameter space to improve EM signal predictions.
• Here we conduct 27 high-resolution, axisymmetric, long-term hydrodynamic simulations of the viscous evolution of BH accretion disks that include neutrino emission/absorption effects and post-processing with a nuclear reaction network.