Ruocheng Zhai

Ruocheng Zhai

Astrophysicist

Sitemap

A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there, there is an XML version available for digesting as well.

Pages

Posts

Future Blog Post

less than 1 minute read

Published:

This post will show up by default. To disable scheduling of future posts, edit config.yml and set future: false.

Blog Post number 4

less than 1 minute read

Published:

This is a sample blog post. Lorem ipsum I can’t remember the rest of lorem ipsum and don’t have an internet connection right now. Testing testing testing this blog post. Blog posts are cool.

Blog Post number 3

less than 1 minute read

Published:

This is a sample blog post. Lorem ipsum I can’t remember the rest of lorem ipsum and don’t have an internet connection right now. Testing testing testing this blog post. Blog posts are cool.

Blog Post number 2

less than 1 minute read

Published:

This is a sample blog post. Lorem ipsum I can’t remember the rest of lorem ipsum and don’t have an internet connection right now. Testing testing testing this blog post. Blog posts are cool.

Blog Post number 1

less than 1 minute read

Published:

This is a sample blog post. Lorem ipsum I can’t remember the rest of lorem ipsum and don’t have an internet connection right now. Testing testing testing this blog post. Blog posts are cool.

portfolio

publications

Paper Title Number 4

Published in GitHub Journal of Bugs, 2024

This paper is about fixing template issue #693.

Recommended citation: Your Name, You. (2024). "Paper Title Number 3." GitHub Journal of Bugs. 1(3).
Download Paper

talks

Exploring Composition Mixing in Kilonova Ejecta with Ray-by-ray Simulations

Published:

Nuclear reactions, especially the r-process, are crucial for energy generation in binary neutron star merger (BNSM) ejecta, as well as in kilonova light curves and the production of heavy elements. In this talk, I will discuss how composition mixing influences nuclear reactions and the resulting observables. We use a 1-D simulation code, KNEC, coupled with an online nuclear network, SkyNet. We perform ray-by-ray simulations to account for the angular dependence of physical properties in the kilonova ejecta. I will show how electron fractions and other quantities, which control the availability of free neutrons and nuclear reaction rates, change with and without mixing. Mixing alters the abundances of some isotopes in individual rays, but the overall global abundances remain consistent with the no-mixing case. Additionally, I will highlight differences in the light curves in optical and near-infrared bands at late times. However, these differences are likely below the sensitivity of current state-of-the-art telescopes. This work shows that the global abundance patterns and light curves are robust under composition mixing and suggests that other hydrodynamical effects may be more critical for interpreting the observable properties of kilonovae.

teaching

Teaching experience 1

Undergraduate course, University 1, Department, 2014

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.

Teaching experience 2

Workshop, University 1, Department, 2015

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.