Fission and fusion of heavy nuclei induced by the passage of a radiation-mediated shock in BNS mergers

We compute the structure of a Newtonian, multi-ion radiation-mediated shock (RMS) for different compositions anticipated in various stellar explosions. We use a multifluid RMS model that incorporates electrostatic coupling between the different plasma constituents as well as Coulomb friction in a self-consistent manner, and approximates the effect of pair creation and the presence of free neutrons in the shock upstream on the shock structure. We find that under certain conditions a significant velocity separation is developed between different ions in the shock downstream and demonstrate that in fast enough shocks ion–ion collisions may trigger fusion and fission events at a relatively high rate. Our analysis ignores anomalous coupling through plasma microturbulence, which might reduce the velocity spread downstream below the activation energy for nuclear reactions. A rough estimate of the scale separation in RMS suggests that for shocks propagating in binary neutron star (BNS) merger ejecta, the anomalous coupling length may exceed the radiation length, allowing a considerable composition change behind the shock via inelastic collisions of α particles with heavy elements at shock velocities β_u > 0.25. A sufficient abundance of free neutrons in the shock upstream, as expected during the first second after the merger, is also expected to alter the ejecta composition through neutron capture downstream. The resultant change in the composition profile may affect the properties of the early kilonova emission. The generation of microturbulence due to velocity separation can also give rise to particle acceleration that might alter the breakout signal in supernovae and other systems.