Dynamical Analysis of the Structure of Neutron Star Critical Collapses
M. -B. Wan, K. -J. Jin, W. -M. Suen
备注：
Poster version presented at the "2nd Course of the International School on Astrophysical Relativity", Erice, Italy, June 27th - July 5th; Shorter version to appear in Proceedings
Jin et al reported that axisymmetric simulations of NS-like objects with polytropic EOS undergo critical gravitational collapse. As the critical collapse observed via fine-tuning of the adiabatic index $Γ$, they conjecture that critical phenomena may occur in realistic astrophysical scenarios. To clarify the implications this numerical observation has on realistic astrophysical scenarios, here, we perform dynamical analysis on the structure of the critical collapse observed in the former work. We report the time scales and oscillation frequencies exhibited by the critical solution and compare these results with values obtained from analytic perturbative mode analysis of equilibrium TOV configurations. We also establish the universality of the critical solution with respect to a 1-parameter family of initial data as well as the phase space manifold of the critical collapse.
Critical phenomena in gravitational collapse opened a new mathematical vista into the theory of general relativity and may ultimately entail fundamental physical implication in observations. However, at present, the dynamics of critical phenomena in gravitational collapse scenarios are still largely unknown. My thesis seeks to understand the properties of the threshold in the solution space of the Einstein field equations between the black hole and neutron star phases, understand the properties of the neutron star critical solution and clarify the implication of these results on realistic astr…
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Gravitational wave interactions with a viscous fluid: Core collapse supernova, binary neutron star merger, and accretion around a black hole merger
Rhodes University（罗德斯大学）；National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS)（国家理论与计算科学研究所）；University of South Africa（南非大学）；Luleå tekniska universitet（吕勒奥理工学院）
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A hypermassive neutron star (HMNS) is a possible transient formed after the merger of a neutron star binary. In the latest magnetohydrodynamic simulations in full general relativity, we find that a magnetized HMNS undergoes `delayed' collapse to a rotating black hole (BH) as a result of angular momentum transport via magnetic braking and the magnetorotational instability. The outcome is a BH surrounded by a massive, hot torus with a collimated magnetic field. The torus accretes onto the BH at a quasi-steady accretion rate ~10 solar mass/s; the lifetime of the torus is ~10 ms. The torus has a t…
Coalescing compact binaries with neutron star (NS) or black hole (BH) components are important sources of gravitational waves for the laser-interferometer detectors currently under construction, and may also be sources of gamma-ray bursts at cosmological distances. This paper focuses on the final hydrodynamic coalescence and merger of NS--NS binaries, and addresses the question of whether black hole formation is the inevitable final fate of these systems.
We study the evolution in axisymmetry of accretion disks formed self-consistently through collapse of magnetized hypermassive neutron stars to black holes. Such stars can arise following the merger of binary neutron stars. They are differentially rotating, dynamically stable, and have rest masses exceeding the mass limit for uniform rotation. However, hypermassive neutron stars are secularly unstable to collapse due to MHD-driven angular momentum transport. The rotating black hole which forms in this process is surrounded by a hot, massive, magnetized torus and a magnetic field collimated alon…
The inspiral and merger of a binary neutron star (NSNS) can lead to the formation of a hypermassive neutron star (HMNS). As the HMNS loses thermal pressure due to neutrino cooling and/or centrifugal support due to gravitational wave (GW) emission, and/or magnetic breaking of differential rotation it will collapse to a black hole. To assess the importance of shock-induced thermal pressure and cooling, we adopt an idealized equation of state and perform NSNS simulations in full GR through late inspiral, merger, and HMNS formation, accounting for cooling. We show that thermal pressure contributes…
We present a new three-dimensional general-relativistic hydrodynamic evolution scheme coupled to dynamical spacetime evolutions which is capable of efficiently simulating stellar collapse, isolated neutron stars, black hole formation, and binary neutron star coalescence. We make use of a set of adapted curvi-linear grids (multipatches) coupled with flux-conservative cell-centered adaptive mesh refinement. This allows us to significantly enlarge our computational domains while still maintaining high resolution in the gravitational-wave extraction zone, the exterior layers of a star, or the regi…
We study the interaction of massless scalar fields with self-gravitating neutron stars by means of fully dynamic numerical simulations of the Einstein-Klein-Gordon perfect fluid system. Our investigation is restricted to spherical symmetry and the neutron stars are approximated by relativistic polytropes. Studying the nonlinear dynamics of isolated neutron stars is very effectively performed within the characteristic formulation of general relativity, in which the spacetime is foliated by a family of outgoing light cones. We are able to compactify the entire spacetime on a computational grid a…
A dynamical symmetry for spherical collapse has been studied using a linear transformation of the initial data set (mass and kinetic energy function) and the area radius. With proper choice of the initial area radius, the evolution as well as the physical parameters namely energy density and shear remain invariant both initially and at any time instant. Finally, it is found that the final outcome of collapse depends on the initial choice of the area radius.
Short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) show a large diversity in their properties. This suggests that the observed phenomenon can be caused by different "central engines" or that the engine produces a variety of outcomes depending on its parameters, or possibly both. The most popular engine scenario, the merger of two neutron stars, has received support from the recent Fermi and INTEGRAL detection of a burst of gamma rays (GRB170817A) following the neutron star merger GW170817, but at the moment it is not clear how peculiar this event potentially was. Several sGRBs engine models involve the collapse o…
This note describes fitting formulae for the gravitational waveforms generated by a rapidly rotating neutron star (e.g., newly-formed in the core collapse of a supernova) as it evolves from an initial axisymmetric configuration toward a triaxial ellipsoid.
Numerical simulations of binary neutron stars by Wilson, Mathews, and Marronetti indicated that neutron stars that are stable in isolation can be made to collapse to black holes when placed in a binary. This claim was surprising as it ran counter to the Newtonian expectation that a neutron star in a binary should be more stable, not less. After correcting an error found by Flanagan, Wilson and Mathews found that the compression of the neutron stars was significantly reduced but not eliminated. This has motivated us to ask the following general question: Under what circumstances can general-rel…
We study the lifetimes of the remnant produced by the merger of two neutron stars and revisit the determination of the threshold mass to prompt collapse, $M_{\rm th}$. Using a fully general-relativistic numerical approach and a novel method for a rigorous determination of $M_{\rm th}$, we show that a nonlinear universal relation exists between the threshold mass and the maximum compactness. For the temperature-dependent equations of state considered here, our results improve a similar linear relation found recently with methods that are less accurate but yield quantitatively similar results. F…
The threshold mass for prompt collapse in binary neutron star mergers was empirically found to depend on the stellar properties of the maximum-mass non-rotating neutron star model. Here we present a semi-analytic derivation of this empirical relation which suggests that it is rather insensitive to thermal effects, to deviations from axisymmetry and to the exact rotation law in merger remnants. We utilize axisymmetric, cold equilibrium models with differential rotation and determine the threshold mass for collapse from the comparison between an empirical relation that describes the angular mome…
We perform hydrodynamical simulations of neutron-star mergers for a large sample of temperature-dependent, nuclear equations of state, and determine the threshold mass above which the merger remnant promptly collapses to form a black hole. We find that, depending on the equation of state, the threshold mass is larger than the maximum mass of a non-rotating star in isolation by between 30 and 70 per cent. Our simulations also show that the ratio between the threshold mass and maximum mass is tightly correlated with the compactness of the non-rotating maximum-mass configuration. We speculate on …
Axisymmetric numerical simulations of rotating stellar core collapse to a neutron star are performed in the framework of full general relativity. The so-called Cartoon method, in which the Einstein field equations are solved in the Cartesian coordinates and the axisymmetric condition is imposed around the $y=0$ plane, is adopted. The hydrodynamic equations are solved in the cylindrical coordinates (on the $y=0$ plane in the Cartesian coordinates) using a high-resolution shock-capturing scheme with the maximum grid size $(2500,2500)$. A parametric equation of state is adopted to model collapsin…
We investigate the properties of the event horizon in the merger between a large black hole and a smaller neutron star. We find that, if the star is compact enough, then, in its rest frame a horizon begins to grow inside the star before it merges with the black hole, in a manner analogous to the growth of the event horizon in stellar collapse. We may say that, ahead of its fall into the larger black hole, the neutron star begins to become a black hole itself. We discuss how the phenomenon, even if not directly observable, can be invariantly characterized. We demonstrate it quantitatively by ex…
A degenerate neutron gas in equilibrium with a background of electrons and protons in a magnetic field exerts its pressure anisotropically, having a smaller value perpendicular than along the magnetic field. For critical fields the magnetic pressure may produce the vanishing of the equatorial pressure of the neutron gas, and the outcome could be a transverse collapse of the star. This fixes a limit to the fields to be observable in stable pulsars as a function of their density. The final structure left over after the implosion might be a mixed phase of nucleons and meson ($π^{\pm,0},κ^{\pm,0}$…
Inspiraling and merging binary neutron stars are not only important source of gravitational waves, but also promising candidates for coincident electromagnetic counterparts. These systems are thought to be progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs). We have shown previously that binary neutron star mergers that undergo {\it delayed} collapse to a black hole surrounded by a {\it weighty} magnetized accretion disk can drive magnetically-powered jets. We now perform magnetohydrodynamic simulations in full general relativity of binary neutron stars mergers that undergo {\it prompt} collapse to …
Neutron stars (NSs) in the astrophysical universe are often surrounded by accretion disks. Accretion of matter onto an NS may increase its mass above the maximum value allowed by its equation of state, inducing its collapse to a black hole (BH). Here we study this process for the first time, in three-dimensions, and in full general relativity. By considering three initial NS configurations, each with and without a surrounding disk (of mass ~7% M_{NS}), we investigate the effect of the accretion disk on the dynamics of the collapse and its imprint on both the gravitational wave (GW) and electro…
We present new results on the dynamics and gravitational-wave emission from the collapse of differentially rotating neutron stars. We have considered a number of polytropic stellar models having different values of the dimensionless angular momentum J/M^2, where J and M are the asymptotic angular momentum and mass of the star, respectively. For neutron stars with J/M^2<1, i.e., "sub-Kerr" models, we were able to find models that are dynamically unstable and that collapse promptly to a rotating black hole. Both the dynamics of the collapse and the consequent emission of gravitational waves rese…
We investigate spherically-symmetric, general relativistic systems of collapsing perfect fluid distributions. We consider neutron star models that are driven to collapse by the addition of an initially "in-going" velocity profile to the nominally static star solution. The neutron star models we use are Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff solutions with an initially isentropic, gamma-law equation of state. The initial values of 1) the amplitude of the velocity profile, and 2) the central density of the star, span a parameter space, and we focus only on that region that gives rise to Type II critical beh…
A relativistic degenerate neutron gas in equilibrium with a background of electrons and protons in a magnetic field exerts its pressure anisotropically, having a smaller value perpendicular than along the magnetic field. For critical fields the magnetic pressure may produce the vanishing of the equatorial pressure of the neutron gas. Taking it as a model for neutron stars, the outcome could be a transverse collapse of the star. This fixes a limit to the fields to be observable in stable neutron star pulsars as a function of their density. The final structure left over after the implosion might…
We discuss the underlying relativistic physics which causes neutron stars to compress and collapse in close binary systems as has recently been observed in numerical (3+1) dimensional general relativistic hydrodynamic simulations. We show that compression is driven by velocity-dependent relativistic hydrodynamic terms which increase the self gravity of the stars. They also produce fluid motion with respect to the corotating frame of the binary. We present numerical and analytic results which confirm that such terms are insignificant for uniform translation or when the hydrodynamics is constrai…
Complete tensor-scalar and hydrodynamic equations are presented and integrated, for a self-gravitating perfect fluid. The initial conditions describe unstable-equilibrium neutron star configuration, with a polytropic equation of state. They are necessary in order to follow the gravitational collapse (including full hydrodynamics) of this star toward a black hole and to study the resulting scalar gravitational wave. The amplitude of this wave, as well as the radiated energy dramatically increase above some critical value of the parameter of the coupling function, due to the spontaneous scalariz…
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