Measuring Gold and Platinum Spectra for Application in Neutron Star Merger Studies

The recent detection of a binary neutron star merger using gravitational wave interferometry has renewed widespread interest in using spectroscopy to detect and determine the abundances of heavy elements believed to be generated via the r-process in such merger events. There is, however, a lack of high-quality atomic data for the low charge state heavy elements that are of importance for such studies. Results are presented for gold and platinum line emission from neon-filled hollow cathode lamp spectra collected with a resolving power ~10,000 over a wavelength range from 200-1500nm. The spectra are compared to measurements on the Auburn Compact Toroidal Hybrid experiment, recent large-scale atomic structure calculations, and previous spectral measurements from literature.