Special Seminar

Leonardo Chiesa (U Trento) will give a special seminar talk entitled: Detailed neutrino-matter interaction rates in binary neutron star mergers

GW170817 marked the first outstanding detection of a gravitational-wave signal from the coalescence of a binary neutron star (BNS) system. The successful follow-up campaign for electromagnetic counterparts has confirmed the remarkable scientific potential of BNS mergers as multi-messenger astrophysical sources. To fully harness this potential, reliable theoretical modeling is essential to avoid systematic errors when interpreting observations. For instance, the interplay between neutrinos and nuclear matter can generate distinct fingerprints on the coalescence, such as affecting the fate of the post-merger remnant or the final nucleosynthesis outcome in the ejecta. To properly model the impact of neutrinos in numerical BNS simulations, one should provide neutrino-matter interaction rates that are as accurate as possible. However, current implementations often rely on oversimplifications or omit potentially relevant neutrino-matter reactions.

To address this need, I will present a novel numerical library designed to evaluate detailed neutrino-matter interaction rates in the context of BNS mergers. The library incorporates the impact of various physical effects on the rates, which are typically not considered in standard implementations. As an application example, I will exploit the library to predict typical neutrino rates for thermodynamics conditions taken from the post-merger phase of BNS merger simulations with moment-truncated (M1) neutrino transport. Such a study can help to identify the minimum set of relevant reactions and the corresponding accuracy needed to precisely predict the impact of neutrinos on the system.