Igniting weak interactions in neutron star postmerger accretion disks

Understand

The merger of two neutron stars or of a neutron star and a black hole typically results in the formation of a post-merger accretion disk.

• Outflows from disks may dominate the overall ejecta from mergers and be a major source of r-process nuclei in our universe.
• We explore the parameter space of such disks, their outflows, and r-process yields by performing three-dimensional general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations with weak interactions and approximate neutrino transport.
• We discuss the mapping between initial binary parameters and the parameter space of resulting disks, chiefly characterized by their initial accretion rate.