The Merger of Small and Large Black Holes

We present simulations of binary black holes mergers in which, after the common outer horizon has formed, the marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) corresponding to the individual black holes continue to approach and eventually penetrate each other. This has very interesting consequences according to recent results in the theory of MOTSs. Uniqueness and stability theorems imply that two MOTSs which touch with a common outer normal must be identical. This suggests a possible dramatic consequence of the collision between a small and large black hole. If the penetration were to continue to completion then the two MOTSs would have to coalesce, by some combination of the small one growing and the big one shrinking. Here we explore the relationship between theory and numerical simulations, in which a small black hole has halfway penetrated a large one.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figure

Magnetic field effects on nucleosynthesis and kilonovae from neutron star merger remnants

We investigate the influence of parametric magnetic field configurations of a hypermassive neutron star (HMNS) on the outflow properties, nucleosynthesis yields, and kilonova light curves. We perform three-dimensional dynamical space–time general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations, including a neutrino leakage scheme, microphysical finite-temperature equation of state, and an initial poloidal magnetic field. We find that varying the magnetic field strength and falloff impacts the formation of magnetized winds or mildly relativistic jetted outflows, which in turn has profound effects on the outflow properties. All of the evolved configurations collapse to a black hole ∼38–40 ms after coalescence, where the ones forming jetted outflows seem more effective at redistributing angular momentum, which result in earlier collapse times. Larger mass ejecta rates and radial velocities of unbound material characterize the systems that form jetted outflows. The bolometric light curves of the kilonovae and r-process yields that are produced by the post-merger remnant system change considerably with different magnetic field parameters. We conclude that the magnetic field strength and falloff have robust effects on the outflow properties and electromagnetic observables. This can be particularly important as the total ejecta mass from our simulations (≃10−3 M⊙) makes the ejecta from HMNS a compelling source to power kilonova through radioactive decay of r-process elements

Proto-magnetar jets as central engines for broad-lined Type Ic supernovae

A subset of type Ic supernovae (SNe Ic), broad-lined SNe Ic (SNe Ic-bl), show unusually high kinetic energies ($\sim 10^{52}$ erg) which cannot be explained by the energy supplied by neutrinos alone. Many SNe Ic-bl have been observed in coincidence with long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) which suggests a connection between SNe and GRBs. A small fraction of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) form a rapidly-rotating and strongly-magnetized protoneutron star (PNS), a proto-magnetar. Jets from such magnetars can provide the high kinetic energies observed in SNe Ic-bl and also provide the connection to GRBs. In this work we use the jetted outflow produced in a 3D CCSN simulation from a consistently formed proto-magnetar as the central engine for full-star explosion simulations. We extract a range of central engine parameters and find that the extracted engine energy is in the range of $6.231 \times 10^{51}-1.725 \times 10^{52}$ erg, the engine time-scale in the range of $0.479-1.159$ s and the engine half-opening angle in the range of $\sim 9-19^{\circ}$. Using these as central engines, we perform 2D special-relativistic (SR) hydrodynamic (HD) and radiation transfer simulations to calculate the corresponding light curves and spectra. We find that these central engine parameters successfully produce SNe Ic-bl which demonstrates that jets from proto-magnetars can be viable engines for SNe Ic-bl. We also find that only the central engines with smaller opening angles ($\sim 10^{\circ}$) form a GRB implying that GRB formation is likely associated with narrower jet outflows and Ic-bl's without GRBs may be associated with wider outflows.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure

Estimating outflow masses and velocities in merger simulations:Impact of <i>r</i>-process heating and neutrino cooling

The determination of the mass, composition, and geometry of matter outflows in black hole-neutron star and neutron star-neutron star binaries is crucial to current efforts to model kilonovae, and to understand the role of neutron star merger in r-process nucleosynthesis. In this manuscript, we review the simple criteria currently used in merger simulations to determine whether matter is unbound and what the asymptotic velocity of ejected material will be. We then show that properly accounting for both heating and cooling during r-process nucleosynthesis is important to accurately predict the mass and kinetic energy of the outflows. These processes are also likely to be crucial to predict the fallback timescale of any bound ejecta. We derive a model for the asymptotic veloicity of unbound matter and binding energy of bound matter that accounts for both of these effects and that can easily be implemented in merger simulations. We show, however, that the detailed velocity distribution and geometry of the outflows can currently only be captured by full 3D fluid simulations of the outflows, as non-local effect ignored by the simple criteria used in merger simulations cannot be safely neglected when modeling these effects. Finally, we propose the introduction of simple source terms in the fluid equations to approximately account for heating/cooling from r-process nucleosynthesis in future seconds-long 3D simulations of merger remnants, without the explicit inclusion of out-of-nuclear statistical equilibrium reactions in the simulations.Comment: Accepted by Phys.Rev.

Three-dimensional general-relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of binary neutron star coalescence and stellar collapse with multipatch grids

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 curvilinear 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 region of mass ejection in merging neutron stars. The fluid is evolved with a high-resolution, shock-capturing finite volume scheme, while the spacetime geometry is evolved using fourth-order finite differences. We employ a multirate Runge-Kutta time-integration scheme for efficiency, evolving the fluid with second-order integration and the spacetime geometry with fourth-order integration. We validate our code by a number of benchmark problems: a rotating stellar collapse model, an excited neutron star, neutron star collapse to a black hole, and binary neutron star coalescence. The test problems, especially the latter, greatly benefit from higher resolution in the gravitational wave extraction zone, causally disconnected outer boundaries, and application of Cauchy-characteristic gravitational wave extraction. We show that we are able to extract convergent gravitational wave modes up to (ℓ,m)=(6,6). This study paves the way for more realistic and detailed studies of compact objects and stellar collapse in full three dimensions and in large computational domains. The multipatch infrastructure and the improvements to mesh refinement and hydrodynamics codes discussed in this paper will be made available as part of the open-source Einstein Toolkit

Matching post-Newtonian and numerical relativity waveforms: systematic errors and a new phenomenological model for non-precessing black hole binaries

We present a new phenomenological gravitational waveform model for the inspiral and coalescence of non-precessing spinning black hole binaries. Our approach is based on a frequency domain matching of post-Newtonian inspiral waveforms with numerical relativity based binary black hole coalescence waveforms. We quantify the various possible sources of systematic errors that arise in matching post-Newtonian and numerical relativity waveforms, and we use a matching criteria based on minimizing these errors; we find that the dominant source of errors are those in the post-Newtonian waveforms near the merger. An analytical formula for the dominant mode of the gravitational radiation of non-precessing black hole binaries is presented that captures the phenomenology of the hybrid waveforms. Its implementation in the current searches for gravitational waves should allow cross-checks of other inspiral-merger-ringdown waveform families and improve the reach of gravitational wave searches.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure