{"id":13,"date":"2018-10-09T08:56:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T12:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/?page_id=13"},"modified":"2019-05-27T14:03:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T18:03:42","slug":"research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/research\/rpa_logo_emh_white\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-100\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-100\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/files\/2019\/04\/RPA_logo_EMH_white-300x157.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/files\/2019\/04\/RPA_logo_EMH_white-300x157.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/files\/2019\/04\/RPA_logo_EMH_white-768x402.png 768w, https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/files\/2019\/04\/RPA_logo_EMH_white-1024x536.png 1024w, https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/files\/2019\/04\/RPA_logo_EMH_white.png 1067w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My research interests include theoretical and observational investigations of the rapid neutron capture (&#8220;<em>r<\/em>-&#8220;) process.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, we have investigated actinide production in the neutron-rich, tidal ejecta of a neutron star merger (NSM) event. We found that actinide production can be so robust in these ejecta that an additional actinide-poor, lanthanide-rich component is necessary in order to dilute the actinide levels to be in agreement with observations. Such a lanthanide-rich component may be found in the accretion disk wind trajectory of an NSM. The disk wind component must also be a dominant fraction of the ejecta mass in order to match observations of metal-poor stars that are enhanced with <em>r<\/em>-process elements and actinides.<\/p>\n<p>I have also written a model that uses Monte Carlo methods in order to reconstruct what the ejecta distribution of an <em>r<\/em>-process event would have looked like (as a function of electron fraction, <em>Y<sub>e<\/sub><\/em>) in order to reproduce the observed abundances in <em>r<\/em>-process enhanced stars. The results derived with this method are consistent with values derived from the GW170817 associated kilonova (&#8220;SSS2017a&#8221;\/&#8221;AT2017gfo&#8221;). This consistency could imply that NSMs are indeed the progenitors of the <em>r<\/em>-process material in metal-poor stars enhanced in these elements.<\/p>\n<p>See more: <span style=\"color: #ffcc00\"><a style=\"color: #ffcc00\" href=\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/research\/publications\/\">Publications<\/a><\/span>\u00a0 \u2022\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #ffcc00\"><a style=\"color: #ffcc00\" href=\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/research\/talks\/\">Talks<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My research interests include theoretical and observational investigations of the rapid neutron capture (&#8220;r-&#8220;) process. Recently, we have investigated actinide production in the neutron-rich, tidal ejecta of a neutron star merger (NSM) event. We found that actinide production can be so robust in these ejecta that an additional actinide-poor, lanthanide-rich component is necessary in order &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/research\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Research&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/erika-holmbeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}