Radiation hydrodynamics modeling of kilonovae with SNEC. (arXiv:2111.06870v1 [astro-ph.HE])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Wu_Z/0/1/0/all/0/1">Zhenyu Wu</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Ricigliano_G/0/1/0/all/0/1">Giacomo Ricigliano</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Kashyap_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">Rahul Kashyap</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Perego_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Albino Perego</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Radice_D/0/1/0/all/0/1">David Radice</a>

We develop a method to compute synthetic kilonova light curves that combines
numerical relativity simulations of neutron star mergers and the texttt{SNEC}
radiation-hydrodynamics code. We describe our implementation of initial and
boundary conditions, r-process heating, and opacities for kilonova simulations.
We validate our approach by carefully checking that energy conservation is
satisfied and by comparing the texttt{SNEC} results with those of two
semi-analytic light curve models. We apply our code to the calculation of color
light curves for three binaries having different mass ratios (equal and unequal
mass) and different merger outcome (short-lived and long-lived remnants). We
study the sensitivity of our results to hydrodynamic effects, nuclear physics
uncertainties in the heating rates, and duration of the merger simulations. We
also study the impact of shocks possibly launched into the outflows by a
relativistic jet. None of our models match AT2017gfo, the kilonova in GW170817.
This points to possible deficiencies in the merger simulations and to the need
to go beyond the assumption of spherical symmetry adopted in this work.

We develop a method to compute synthetic kilonova light curves that combines
numerical relativity simulations of neutron star mergers and the texttt{SNEC}
radiation-hydrodynamics code. We describe our implementation of initial and
boundary conditions, r-process heating, and opacities for kilonova simulations.
We validate our approach by carefully checking that energy conservation is
satisfied and by comparing the texttt{SNEC} results with those of two
semi-analytic light curve models. We apply our code to the calculation of color
light curves for three binaries having different mass ratios (equal and unequal
mass) and different merger outcome (short-lived and long-lived remnants). We
study the sensitivity of our results to hydrodynamic effects, nuclear physics
uncertainties in the heating rates, and duration of the merger simulations. We
also study the impact of shocks possibly launched into the outflows by a
relativistic jet. None of our models match AT2017gfo, the kilonova in GW170817.
This points to possible deficiencies in the merger simulations and to the need
to go beyond the assumption of spherical symmetry adopted in this work.

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