Tellurium emission line in kilonova AT 2017gfo

Abstract

The late-time spectra of the kilonova AT 2017gfo associated with GW170817 exhibit a strong emission line feature at $2.1\hat{\mathrm{I}}¼\mathrm{m}$. The line structure develops with time and there is no apparent blue-shifted absorption feature in the spectra, suggesting that this emission line feature is produced by electron collision excitation. We attribute the emission line to a fine structure line of Tellurium (Te) III, which is one of the most abundant elements in the second r-process peak. By using a synthetic spectral modeling including fine structure emission lines with the solar r-process abundance pattern beyond the first r-process peak, i.e., atomic mass numbers $A\gtrsim 88$, we demonstrate that [Te III] $2.10\hat{\mathrm{I}}¼\mathrm{m}$ is indeed expected to be the strongest emission line in the near infrared region. We estimate that the required mass of Te III is $\sim 10^{-3}{M}_{\odot }$, corresponding to the merger ejecta of $0.05M_{\odot }$, which is in agreement with the mass estimated from the kilonova light curve.

4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to MNRAS