A Numerical Relativity Waveform Surrogate Model for Generically Precessing Binary Black Hole Mergers

A generic, non-eccentric binary black hole (BBH) system emits gravitational waves (GWs) that are completely described by 7 intrinsic parameters: the black hole spin vectors and the ratio of their masses. Simulating a BBH coalescence by solving Einstein's equations numerically is computationally expensive, requiring days to months of computing resources for a single set of parameter values. Since theoretical predictions of the GWs are often needed for many different source parameters, a fast and accurate model is essential. We present the first surrogate model for GWs from the coalescence of BBHs including all $7$ dimensions of the intrinsic non-eccentric parameter space. The surrogate model, which we call NRSur7dq2, is built from the results of $744$ numerical relativity simulations. NRSur7dq2 covers spin magnitudes up to $0.8$ and mass ratios up to $2$, includes all $\ell \leq 4$ modes, begins about $20$ orbits before merger, and can be evaluated in $\sim~50\,\mathrm{ms}$. We find the largest NRSur7dq2 errors to be comparable to the largest errors in the numerical relativity simulations, and more than an order of magnitude smaller than the errors of other waveform models. Our model, and more broadly the methods developed here, will enable studies that would otherwise require millions of numerical relativity waveforms, such as parameter inference and tests of general relativity with GW observations.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; Added report numbe

Low mass binary neutron star mergers : gravitational waves and neutrino emission

Neutron star mergers are among the most promising sources of gravitational waves for advanced ground-based detectors. These mergers are also expected to power bright electromagnetic signals, in the form of short gamma-ray bursts, infrared/optical transients, and radio emission. Simulations of these mergers with fully general relativistic codes are critical to understand the merger and post-merger gravitational wave signals and their neutrinos and electromagnetic counterparts. In this paper, we employ the SpEC code to simulate the merger of low-mass neutron star binaries (two $1.2M_\odot$ neutron stars) for a set of three nuclear-theory based, finite temperature equations of state. We show that the frequency peaks of the post-merger gravitational wave signal are in good agreement with predictions obtained from simulations using a simpler treatment of gravity. We find, however, that only the fundamental mode of the remnant is excited for long periods of time: emission at the secondary peaks is damped on a millisecond timescale in the simulated binaries. For such low-mass systems, the remnant is a massive neutron star which, depending on the equation of state, is either permanently stable or long-lived. We observe strong excitations of l=2, m=2 modes, both in the massive neutron star and in the form of hot, shocked tidal arms in the surrounding accretion torus. We estimate the neutrino emission of the remnant using a neutrino leakage scheme and, in one case, compare these results with a gray two-moment neutrino transport scheme. We confirm the complex geometry of the neutrino emission, also observed in previous simulations with neutrino leakage, and show explicitly the presence of important differences in the neutrino luminosity, disk composition, and outflow properties between the neutrino leakage and transport schemes.Comment: Accepted by PRD; 23 pages; 24 figures; 4 table

Neutron star-black hole mergers with a nuclear equation of state and neutrino cooling: Dependence in the binary parameters

We present a first exploration of the results of neutron star-black hole mergers using black hole masses in the most likely range of $7M_\odot-10M_\odot$, a neutrino leakage scheme, and a modeling of the neutron star material through a finite-temperature nuclear-theory based equation of state. In the range of black hole spins in which the neutron star is tidally disrupted ($\chi_{\rm BH}\gtrsim 0.7$), we show that the merger consistently produces large amounts of cool ($T\lesssim 1\,{\rm MeV}$), unbound, neutron-rich material ($M_{\rm ej}\sim 0.05M_\odot-0.20M_\odot$). A comparable amount of bound matter is initially divided between a hot disk ($T_{\rm max}\sim 15\,{\rm MeV}$) with typical neutrino luminosity $L_\nu\sim 10^{53}\,{\rm erg/s}$, and a cooler tidal tail. After a short period of rapid protonization of the disk lasting $\sim 10\,{\rm ms}$, the accretion disk cools down under the combined effects of the fall-back of cool material from the tail, continued accretion of the hottest material onto the black hole, and neutrino emission. As the temperature decreases, the disk progressively becomes more neutron-rich, with dimmer neutrino emission. This cooling process should stop once the viscous heating in the disk (not included in our simulations) balances the cooling. These mergers of neutron star-black hole binaries with black hole masses $M_{\rm BH}\sim 7M_\odot-10M_\odot$ and black hole spins high enough for the neutron star to disrupt provide promising candidates for the production of short gamma-ray bursts, of bright infrared post-merger signals due to the radioactive decay of unbound material, and of large amounts of r-process nuclei.Comment: 20 pages, 19 figure

Post-merger evolution of a neutron star-black hole binary with neutrino transport

We present a first simulation of the post-merger evolution of a black hole-neutron star binary in full general relativity using an energy-integrated general relativistic truncated moment formalism for neutrino transport. We describe our implementation of the moment formalism and important tests of our code, before studying the formation phase of a disk after a black hole-neutron star merger. We use as initial data an existing general relativistic simulation of the merger of a neutron star of 1.4 solar mass with a black hole of 7 solar mass and dimensionless spin a/M=0.8. Comparing with a simpler leakage scheme for the treatment of the neutrinos, we find noticeable differences in the neutron to proton ratio in and around the disk, and in the neutrino luminosity. We find that the electron neutrino luminosity is much lower in the transport simulations, and that the remnant is less neutron-rich. The spatial distribution of the neutrinos is significantly affected by relativistic effects. Over the short timescale evolved, we do not observe purely neutrino-driven outflows. However, a small amount of material (3e-4Msun) is ejected in the polar region during the circularization of the disk. Most of that material is ejected early in the formation of the disk, and is fairly neutron rich. Through r-process nucleosynthesis, that material should produce high-opacity lanthanides in the polar region, and could thus affect the lightcurve of radioactively powered electromagnetic transients. We also show that by the end of the simulation, while the bulk of the disk is neutron-rich, its outer layers have a higher electron fraction. As that material would be the first to be unbound by disk outflows on longer timescales, the changes in Ye experienced during the formation of the disk could have an impact on the nucleosynthesis outputs from neutrino-driven and viscously-driven outflows. [Abridged]Comment: 29 pages, 25 figure

Gravitational wave burst signal from core collapse of rotating stars

We present results from detailed general relativistic simulations of stellar core collapse to a proto-neutron star, using two different microphysical nonzero-temperature nuclear equations of state as well as an approximate description of deleptonization during the collapse phase. Investigating a wide variety of rotation rates and profiles as well as masses of the progenitor stars and both equations of state, we confirm in this very general setup the recent finding that a generic gravitational wave burst signal is associated with core bounce, already known as type I in the literature. The previously suggested type II (or “multiple-bounce”) waveform morphology does not occur. Despite this reduction to a single waveform type, we demonstrate that it is still possible to constrain the progenitor and postbounce rotation based on a combination of the maximum signal amplitude and the peak frequency of the emitted gravitational wave burst. Our models include to sufficient accuracy the currently known necessary physics for the collapse and bounce phase of core-collapse supernovae, yielding accurate and reliable gravitational wave signal templates for gravitational wave data analysis. In addition, we assess the possibility of nonaxisymmetric instabilities in rotating nascent proto-neutron stars. We find strong evidence that in an iron core-collapse event the postbounce core cannot reach sufficiently rapid rotation to become subject to a classical bar-mode instability. However, many of our postbounce core models exhibit sufficiently rapid and differential rotation to become subject to the recently discovered dynamical instability at low rotation rates

Evolution of the Magnetized, Neutrino-Cooled Accretion Disk in the Aftermath of a Black Hole Neutron Star Binary Merger

Black hole-torus systems from compact binary mergers are possible engines for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). During the early evolution of the post-merger remnant, the state of the torus is determined by a combination of neutrino cooling and magnetically-driven heating processes, so realistic models must include both effects. In this paper, we study the post-merger evolution of a magnetized black hole-neutron star binary system using the Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC) from an initial post-merger state provided by previous numerical relativity simulations. We use a finite-temperature nuclear equation of state and incorporate neutrino effects in a leakage approximation. To achieve the needed accuracy, we introduce improvements to SpEC's implementation of general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), including the use of cubed-sphere multipatch grids and an improved method for dealing with supersonic accretion flows where primitive variable recovery is difficult. We find that a seed magnetic field triggers a sustained source of heating, but its thermal effects are largely cancelled by the accretion and spreading of the torus from MHD-related angular momentum transport. The neutrino luminosity peaks at the start of the simulation, and then drops significantly over the first 20\,ms but in roughly the same way for magnetized and nonmagnetized disks. The heating rate and disk's luminosity decrease much more slowly thereafter. These features of the evolution are insensitive to grid structure and resolution, formulation of the MHD equations, and seed field strength, although turbulent effects are not fully convergedComment: 17 pages, 18 figure

Black-hole–neutron-star mergers at realistic mass ratios: Equation of state and spin orientation effects

Black-hole–neutron-star mergers resulting in the disruption of the neutron star and the formation of an accretion disk and/or the ejection of unbound material are prime candidates for the joint detection of gravitational-wave and electromagnetic signals when the next generation of gravitational-wave detectors comes online. However, the disruption of the neutron star and the properties of the postmerger remnant are very sensitive to the parameters of the binary (mass ratio, black-hole spin, neutron star radius). In this paper, we study the impact of the radius of the neutron star and the alignment of the black-hole spin on black-hole–neutron-star mergers within the range of mass ratio currently deemed most likely for field binaries (M_BH∼7M_NS) and for black-hole spins large enough for the neutron star to disrupt (J_BH/M^(2)_(BH)=0.9). We find that (i) In this regime, the merger is particularly sensitive to the radius of the neutron star, with remnant masses varying from 0.3M_NS to 0.1M_NS for changes of only 2 km in the NS radius; (ii) 0.01M_(⊙)–0.05M_(⊙) of unbound material can be ejected with kinetic energy ≳10^(51)  ergs, a significant increase compared to low mass ratio, low spin binaries. This ejecta could power detectable postmerger optical and radio afterglows. (iii) Only a small fraction of the Advanced LIGO events in this parameter range have gravitational-wave signals which could offer constraints on the equation of state of the neutron star (at best ∼3% of the events for a single detector at design sensitivity). (iv) A misaligned black-hole spin works against disk formation, with less neutron-star material remaining outside of the black hole after merger, and a larger fraction of that material remaining in the tidal tail instead of the forming accretion disk. (v) Large kicks v_kick≳300  km/s can be given to the final black hole as a result of a precessing black-hole–neutron-star merger, when the disruption of the neutron star occurs just outside or within the innermost stable spherical orbit

Low mass binary neutron star mergers: Gravitational waves and neutrino emission

Neutron star mergers are among the most promising sources of gravitational waves for advanced ground-based detectors. These mergers are also expected to power bright electromagnetic signals, in the form of short gamma-ray bursts, infrared/optical transients powered by r-process nucleosynthesis in neutron-rich material ejected by the merger, and radio emission from the interaction of that ejecta with the interstellar medium. Simulations of these mergers with fully general relativistic codes are critical to understand the merger and postmerger gravitational wave signals and their neutrinos and electromagnetic counterparts. In this paper, we employ the Spectral Einstein Code to simulate the merger of low mass neutron star binaries (two 1.2M⊙ neutron stars) for a set of three nuclear-theory-based, finite temperature equations of state. We show that the frequency peaks of the postmerger gravitational wave signal are in good agreement with predictions obtained from recent simulations using a simpler treatment of gravity. We find, however, that only the fundamental mode of the remnant is excited for long periods of time: emission at the secondary peaks is damped on a millisecond time scale in the simulated binaries. For such low mass systems, the remnant is a massive neutron star which, depending on the equation of state, is either permanently stable or long lived (i.e. rapid uniform rotation is sufficient to prevent its collapse). We observe strong excitations of l=2, m=2 modes, both in the massive neutron star and in the form of hot, shocked tidal arms in the surrounding accretion torus. We estimate the neutrino emission of the remnant using a neutrino leakage scheme and, in one case, compare these results with a gray two-moment neutrino transport scheme. We confirm the complex geometry of the neutrino emission, also observed in previous simulations with neutrino leakage, and show explicitly the presence of important differences in the neutrino luminosity, disk composition, and outflow properties between the neutrino leakage and transport schemes