Long-term impact of the magnetic-field strength on the evolution and electromagnetic emission by neutron-star merger remnants
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Numerical simulations are essential to understand the complex physics accompanying the merger of binary systems of neutron stars. However, these simulations become computationally challenging when they have to model the merger remnants on timescales over which secular phenomena, such as the launching of magnetically driven outflows, develop. To tackle these challenges, we have recently developed a hybrid approach that combines, via a handoff transition, a fully general-relativistic code (fil) with a more efficient code making use of the conformally flat approximation (bhac+). We report here important additional developments of bhac+ consisting of the inclusion of gravitational-wave radiation-reaction contributions and of higher-order formulations of the equations of general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. Both improvements have allowed us to explore binary neutron-star merger remnants with high accuracy and over timescales that would have been computationally prohibitive otherwise. More specifically, we have investigated the impact of the magnetic-field strength on the long-term (i.e., $\ensuremath{\sim}200\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{ms}$) and high-resolution (i.e., 150 m) evolutions of the ``magnetar'' resulting from the merger of two neutron stars with a realistic equation of state. In this way, and for sufficiently large magnetic fields, we observe the weakening or suppression of differential rotation and the generation of magnetic flares in the outer layers of the remnant. These flares, driven mostly by the Parker instability, are responsible for intense and collimated Poynting flux outbursts and mass ejections. This novel phenomenology offers the possibility of seeking corresponding signatures from the observations of short gamma-ray bursts and hence revealing the existence of a long-lived strongly magnetized remnant.
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Hochschule Darmstadt, Central Remedial Clinic, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, European Research Council, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung
Awards: G1011805105, Collaborative Research: Deploying Curvilinear Coordinate and Multipatch Methods on Neutron Star Mergers, G5511695220, G640028237, Supermassive Black Holes Approaching Merger: Accretion Dynamics, Jets and Electromagnetic Signals, Collaborative research: Frameworks: The Einstein Toolkit ecosystem: Enabling fundamental research in the era of multi-messenger astrophysics, Leveraging Curvilinear Coordinates for Long-term and Accurate Simulations of Compact Binary Inspirals and Mergers
OpenAlex ID: W4410590328