We study the evolution of close binary systems in order to account for the existence of the recently observed binary system containing the most massive millisecond pulsar ever detected, PSR J0740+6620, and its ultra-cool helium white dwarf companion. In order to find a progenitor for this object we compute the evolution of several binary systems composed by a neutron star and a normal donor star employing our stellar code. We assume conservative mass transfer. We also explore the effects of irradiation feedback on the system. We find that irradiated models also provide adequate models for the millisecond pulsar and its companion, so both irradiated and non irradiated systems are good progenitors for PSR J0740+6620. Finally, we obtain a binary system that evolves and accounts for the observational data of the system composed by PSR J0740+6620 (i.e. orbital period, mass, effective temperature and inferred metallicity of the companion, and mass of the neutron star) in a time scale smaller than the age of the Universe. In order to reach an effective temperature as low as observed, the donor star should have an helium envelope as demanded by observations.
The detection of the unusually heavy binary neutron star merger GW190425 marked a stark contrast to the mass distribution from known Galactic pulsars in double neutron star binaries and gravitational-wave source GW170817. We suggest here a formation channel for heavy binary neutron stars and light black hole - neutron star binaries in which massive helium stars, which had their hydrogen envelope removed during a common envelope phase, remain compact and avoid mass transfer onto the neutron star companion, possibly avoiding pulsar recycling. We present three-dimensional simulations of the super…
We consider fallback accretion after an ultra-stripped supernova (USSN) that accompanies formation of a binary neutron star (BNS) or a neutron star-black hole binary (NS-BH). The fallback matter initially accretes directly to the nascent NS, while it starts to accrete to the circumbinary disk, typically $0.1\mbox{-}1\, \mathrm{day}$ after the onset of the USSN explosion. The circumbinary disk mass further accretes, forming mini disks around each compact object, with a super-Eddington rate up to a few years. We show that such a system constitutes a binary ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), and a…
The oscillations of a merger remnant forming after the coalescence of two neutron stars are very characteristic for the high-density equation of state. The dominant oscillation frequency occurs as a pronounced peak in the kHz range of the gravitational-wave spectrum. We describe how the dominant oscillation frequency of the remnant can be employed to infer the radii of non-rotating neutron stars.
Massive-star binaries can undergo a phase where one of the two stars expands during its advanced evolutionary stage as a giant and envelops its companion, ejecting the hydrogen envelope and tightening its orbit. Such a common envelope phase is required to tighten the binary orbit in the formation of many of the observed X-ray binaries and merging compact binary systems. In the formation scenario for neutron star binaries, the system might pass through a phase where a neutron star spirals into the envelope of its giant star companion. These phases lead to mass accretion onto the neutron star. A…
Merging binary neutron stars are thought to be formed predominantly via isolated binary evolution. In this standard formation scenario, the first-born neutron star goes through a recycling process and might be rapidly spinning during the final inspiral, whereas the second-born star is expected to have effectively zero spin at merger. Based on this feature, we propose a new framework for the astrophysical characterization of binary neutron stars observed from their gravitational wave emission. We further propose a prior for the dimensionless spins of recycled neutron stars, given by a gamma dis…
In this paper we investigate the evolution of binary neutron stars, namely, their magnetic field, spin, and orbital evolution. The core of a neutron star is considered to be a superfluid, superconductor type II. Flux expulsion of the magnetic field out of the core of a single neutron star has been discussed by previous authors. However, the evolution of the core magnetic field is substantially different for a binary neutron star. While for a single neutron star the fluxoids of the proton superconductor always move outward through the core, in a binary neutron star in the accretion phase fluxoi…
The nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in the scenario for the evolution of a close binary of neutron stars differing greatly in mass is considered. In contrast to the scenario for the merger of two neutron stars of comparable masses considered repeatedly in the literature, the evolution of such a binary at the final stage consists in a rapid mass transfer to the more massive star and an explosive disruption of the low-mass component. We provide the details of the explosion and calculate the abundances of the heavy elements produced in this process for various initial conditions.
Employing a simplified version of the Israel-Stewart formalism of general-relativistic shear-viscous hydrodynamics, we explore the evolution of a remnant massive neutron star of binary neutron star merger and pay special attention to the resulting gravitational waveforms. We find that for the plausible values of the so-called viscous alpha parameter of the order $10^{-2}$, the degree of the differential rotation in the remnant massive neutron star is significantly reduced in the viscous timescale, $\alt 5$\,ms. Associated with this, the degree of non-axisymmetric deformation is also reduced qu…
There has been strong observational evidence suggesting a causal connection between the binary history of neutron stars and the evolution of their magnetic field. In this article we discuss one of the plausible mechanisms proposed for the evolution of the surface magnetic field, that of the diamagnetic screening of the field by accreted material.
Although the main features of the evolution of binary neutron star systems are now well established, many details are still subject to debate, especially regarding the post-merger phase. In particular, the lifetime of the hyper-massive neutron stars formed after the merger is very hard to predict. In this work, we provide a simple analytic relation for the lifetime of the merger remnant as function of the initial mass of the neutron stars. This relation results from a joint fit of data from observational evidence and from various numerical simulations. In this way, a large range of collapse ti…
Prospects of establishing the radii of massive neutron stars in PSR J1614-2230 and PSR J0740+6620 from NICER and Chandra observatories hold the potential to constrain the equation of state (EoS) of matter to densities well beyond those encountered in canonical stars of mass $\sim 1.4\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$. In this work, we investigate the relation between the radii of very massive neutron stars up to the maximum mass, $M_{\rm max}$, supported by dense matter EoSs. Results from models with hadronic matter are contrasted with those that include a first-order hadron-to-quark phase transition. We find…
Conformally flat, quasi-circular numerical simulations of the gravitational wave chirp from binary neutron star merger GW170817
Center for Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame（圣母大学天体物理中心物理系）；Center for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame（圣母大学计算研究中心）
Using general-relativistic hydrodynamical simulations, we show that merging binary neutron stars can form hypermassive neutrons stars that undergo the one-arm spiral instability. We study the particular case of a dynamical capture merger where the stars have a small spin, as may arise in globular clusters, and focus on an equal-mass scenario where the spins are aligned with the orbital angular momentum. We find that this instability develops when post-merger fluid vortices lead to the generation of a toroidal remnant - a configuration whose maximum density occurs in a ring around the center-of…
We investigate the orbital dynamics of hierarchical three-body systems containing a double neutron star system orbiting around a massive black hole. These systems show complex dynamical behaviour because of relativistic coupling between orbits of the neutron stars in the double neutron star system and the orbit of the double neutron star system around the black hole. The orbital motion of the neutron stars around each other drives a loop mass current, which gives rise to gravito-magnetism. Generally, gravito-magnetism involves a rotating black hole. The hierarchical three-body system that we c…
The first directly observed gravitational wave event, GW150914, featuring the merger of two massive black holes, highlighted the need to determine how these systems of compact remnant binaries are formed. We use the binary population synthesis code COSMIC (Compact Object Synthesis and Monte Carlo Investigation Code) to predict the types of massive stars that will show significant radial velocity variations, indicative of a potential compact object (i.e. a black hole or neutron star) orbiting the star. We "observe" the binaries generated in the populations with a similar number of epochs and RV…
Pulsars in binary systems have been very successful to test the validity of general relativity in the strong field regime. So far, such binaries include neutron star-white dwarf (NS-WD) and neutron star-neutron star (NS-NS) systems. It is commonly believed that a neutron star-black hole (NS-BH) binary will be much superior for this purpose. But in what sense is this true? Does it apply to all possible deviations?
The recently discovery of a massive neutron star (PSR J1614-2230 of $1.97\pm0.04M_{\odot}$) rules out the soft equation of states (EOSs) such as those included hyperons or kaon condensates at high densities, while the nuclear theory or the terrestrial laboratory data prefer a soft EOS. Here we propose one possible mechanism to allow that the observed massive neutron star can be supported by a soft EOS, that is, if the the gravitational constant $G$ varies at super strong field, a soft EOS can support the massive neutron stars.
We perform a general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulation for $\approx 30$ ms after merger of a binary neutron star to a remnant massive neutron star (RMNS) with a high spatial resolution of the finest grid resolution $12.5$ m. First, we estimate that the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at merger could amplify the magnetic-field energy up to $\sim 1\%$ of the thermal energy. Second, we find that the magnetorotational instability in the RMNS envelope and torus with $ρ< 10^{13}~{\rm g~cm^{-3}}$ sustains magneto-turbulent state and the effective viscous parameter in these regions is likely t…
Over the last couple of decades, there are direct and indirect evidences for massive compact objects than their conventional counterparts. A couple of such examples are super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs and massive neutron stars. The observations of more than a dozen peculiar over-luminous type Ia supernovae predict their origins from super-Chandrasekhar white dwarf progenitors. On the other hand, recent gravitational wave detection and some pulsar observations argue for massive neutron stars, lying in the famous mass-gap between lowest astrophysical black hole and conventional highest neutron …
We perform high-resolution magnetohydrodynamics simulations of binary neutron star mergers in numerical relativity on the Japanese supercomputer K. The neutron stars and merger remnants are covered by a grid spacing of 70\,m, which yields the highest-resolution results among those derived so far. By an in-depth resolution study, we clarify several amplification mechanisms of magnetic fields during the binary neutron star merger for the first time. First, the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability developed in the shear layer at the onset of the merger significantly amplifies the magnetic fields. A hyper…
In order to explore various aspects of stellar evolution, supernovae, gamma ray bursts and nucleosynthesis, we have developed a new efficient stellar evolution code. In this paper we describe this new code and compare the results with the ones calculated by the previous code. Specifically we focus on the progenitor evolution of lower end of the Fe-core collapse supernovae, and mass distribution of remnant neutron stars. We describe how different assumptions will lead different neutron star mass distribution. We also review recent works of our research group.
We explore magnetic-field amplification due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability during binary neutron star mergers. By performing high-resolution general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations with a resolution of $17.5$ m for $4$--$5$ ms after the onset of the merger on the Japanese supercomputer "K", we find that an initial magnetic field of moderate maximum strength $10^{13}$ G is amplified at least by a factor of $\approx 10^3$. We also explore the saturation of the magnetic-field energy and our result shows that it is likely to be $\gtrsim 4 \times 10^{50}$ erg, which is $\gtrsim 0…
The obvious lack of the binary stellar systems that contain neutron stars (NS) is observed at present. Partly it is caused by the fact that it is very difficult to detect neutron star in a binary system if this relativistic component does not manifest itself as a radio pulsar. Among 1879 pulsars that are listed in the ATNF pulsar catalogue, only 141 pulsars are known to be the companions in binary systems. Only 81 objects having median mass estimation of more than 0.2 $M_{\odot}$ constitute the binary systems with pulsars. Nevertheless, such systems should be much more numerous and their inves…
In general neutron stars in binaries are spinning. Recently, a new quasi-equilibrium approximation that includes a rotational velocity piece for each star has been proposed to describe binary neutron stars with arbitrary rotation states in quasi-circular orbits. We have implemented this approximation numerically for the first time, to generate initial data for neutron star binaries with spin. If we choose the rotational velocity piece such that it equals the Newtonian rigid rotation law, we obtain stars with fluid 4-velocities that have expansion and shear of approximately zero, as one would e…
Using a nonlocal extension of the SU(3) Nambu-Jona Lasinio model, which reproduces several of the key features of Quantum Chromodynamics, we show that mixed phases of deconfined quarks and confined hadrons (quark-hybrid matter) may exist in the cores of neutron stars as massive as around 2.1 M_Sun. The radii of these objects are found to be in the canonical range of $\sim 12-13$ km. According to our study, the transition to pure quark matter does not occur in stable neutron stars, but is shifted to neutron stars which are unstable against radial oscillations. The implications of our study for …
The groundbreaking discoveries of gravitational waves from binary black-hole mergers and, most recently, coalescing neutron stars started a new era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics and revolutionized our understanding of the Cosmos. Machine learning techniques such as artificial neural networks are already transforming many technological fields and have also proven successful in gravitational-wave astrophysics for detection and characterization of gravitational-wave signals from binary black holes. Here we use a deep-learning approach to rapidly identify transient gravitational-wave signals fro…
R144 is a recently confirmed very massive, spectroscopic binary which appears isolated from the core of the massive young star cluster R136. The dynamical ejection hypothesis as an origin for its location is claimed improbable by Sana et al. due to its binary nature and high mass. We demonstrate here by means of direct N-body calculations that a very massive binary system can be readily dynamically ejected from a R136-like cluster, through a close encounter with a very massive system. One out of four N-body cluster models produces a dynamically ejected very massive binary system with a mass co…
We demonstrate by a large set of merger simulations for symmetric binary neutron stars (NSs) that there is a tight correlation between the frequency peak of the postmerger gravitational-wave (GW) emission and the physical properties of the nuclear equation of state (EoS), e.g. expressed by the radius of the maximum-mass Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkhoff configuration. Therefore, a single measurement of the peak frequency of the postmerger GW signal will constrain the NS EoS significantly. For plausible optimistic merger-rate estimates a corresponding detection with Advanced LIGO is likely to happen …
We present a novel method for revealing the equation of state of high-density neutron star matter through gravitational waves emitted during the postmerger phase of a binary neutron star system. The method relies on a small number of detections of the peak frequency in the postmerger phase for binaries of different (relatively low) masses, in the most likely range of expected detections. From such observations, one can construct the derivative of the peak frequency versus the binary mass, in this mass range. Through a detailed study of binary neutron star mergers for a large sample of equation…
