Speaker
Description
The observation of the near-infrared emission from binary neutron-star
merger events, often know as kilonova, has increased the confidence
that these astrophysical sources are the potential sites of heavy
r-process nucleosynthesis. This emission is present in the
observations of the gravitational-wave signal (GW170817) by LIGO/Virgo
and is consistent with an electromagnetic transient emission of a
kilonova. However, data of opacities, necessary for the interpretation
of these observations, relies heavily on atomic structure calculations
of both lanthanides and actinides, which is still very sparse. In this
work we discuss the details of these calculations and some of the
limitations imposed by the complexity of f-shell elements. Besides
reviewing some previous results, we compare them with our present
calculations based on the the atomic structure codes FAC and MCDFGME.
We study the combined effect of transition wavelengths and oscillator
strengths on the opacities and how energy precision can be important
at lower wavelengths. Finally, we discuss how higher sensitivity of
the opacity curve at higher energies can be exploited, looking for
features of specific of lantanides and actinides present in kilonovae.
