41 research outputs found
Gravitational waves from galaxy encounters
We discuss the emission of gravitational radiation produced in encounters of
dark matter galactic halos. To this aim we perform a number of numerical
simulations of typical galaxy mergers, computing the associated gravitational
radiation waveforms as well as the energy released in the processes. Our
simulations yield dimensionless gravitational wave amplitudes of the order of
and gravitational wave frequencies of the order of Hz,
when the galaxies are located at a distance of 10 Mpc. These values are of the
same order as those arising in the gravitational radiation originated by strong
variations of the gravitational field in the early Universe, and therefore,
such gravitational waves cannot be directly observed by ground-based detectors.
We discuss the feasibility of an indirect detection by means of the B-mode
polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) induced by such waves.
Our results show that the gravitational waves from encounters of dark matter
galactic halos leave much too small an imprint on the CMB polarization to be
actually observed with ongoing and future missions.Comment: 9 pages with revtex style, 3 ps figures; to be published in Physical
Review
Explosion Mechanisms of Core-Collapse Supernovae
Supernova theory, numerical and analytic, has made remarkable progress in the
past decade. This progress was made possible by more sophisticated simulation
tools, especially for neutrino transport, improved microphysics, and deeper
insights into the role of hydrodynamic instabilities. Violent, large-scale
nonradial mass motions are generic in supernova cores. The neutrino-heating
mechanism, aided by nonradial flows, drives explosions, albeit low-energy ones,
of ONeMg-core and some Fe-core progenitors. The characteristics of the neutrino
emission from new-born neutron stars were revised, new features of the
gravitational-wave signals were discovered, our notion of supernova
nucleosynthesis was shattered, and our understanding of pulsar kicks and
explosion asymmetries was significantly improved. But simulations also suggest
that neutrino-powered explosions might not explain the most energetic
supernovae and hypernovae, which seem to demand magnetorotational driving. Now
that modeling is being advanced from two to three dimensions, more realism, new
perspectives, and hopefully answers to long-standing questions are coming into
reach.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures (29 eps files; high-quality versions can be
obtained upon request); accepted by Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle
Scienc
The Origin of Black Hole Entropy in String Theory
I review some recent work in which the quantum states of string theory which
are associated with certain black holes have been identified and counted. For
large black holes, the number of states turns out to be precisely the
exponential of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. This provides a statistical
origin for black hole thermodynamics in the context of a potential quantum
theory of gravity.Comment: 18 pages (To appear in the proceedings of the Pacific Conference on
Gravitation and Cosmology, Seoul, Korea, February 1-6, 1996.
Correlated Gravitational Wave and Neutrino Signals from General-Relativistic Rapidly Rotating Iron Core Collapse
We present results from a new set of 3D general-relativistic hydrodynamic
simulations of rotating iron core collapse. We assume octant symmetry and focus
on axisymmetric collapse, bounce, the early postbounce evolution, and the
associated gravitational wave (GW) and neutrino signals. We employ a
finite-temperature nuclear equation of state, parameterized electron capture in
the collapse phase, and a multi-species neutrino leakage scheme after bounce.
The latter captures the important effects of deleptonization, neutrino cooling
and heating and enables approximate predictions for the neutrino luminosities
in the early evolution after core bounce. We consider 12-solar-mass and
40-solar-mass presupernova models and systematically study the effects of (i)
rotation, (ii) progenitor structure, and (iii) postbounce neutrino leakage on
dynamics, GW, and, neutrino signals. We demonstrate, that the GW signal of
rapidly rotating core collapse is practically independent of progenitor mass
and precollapse structure. Moreover, we show that the effects of neutrino
leakage on the GW signal are strong only in nonrotating or slowly rotating
models in which GW emission is not dominated by inner core dynamics. In rapidly
rotating cores, core bounce of the centrifugally-deformed inner core excites
the fundamental quadrupole pulsation mode of the nascent protoneutron star. The
ensuing global oscillations (f~700-800 Hz) lead to pronounced oscillations in
the GW signal and correlated strong variations in the rising luminosities of
antineutrino and heavy-lepton neutrinos. We find these features in cores that
collapse to protoneutron stars with spin periods <~ 2.5 ms and rotational
energies sufficient to drive hyper-energetic core-collapse supernova
explosions. Hence, joint GW + neutrino observations of a core collapse event
could deliver strong evidence for or against rapid core rotation. [abridged]Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures. Replaced with version matching published
versio
Axisymmetric core collapse simulations using characteristic numerical relativity
We present results from axisymmetric stellar core collapse simulations in
general relativity. Our hydrodynamics code has proved robust and accurate
enough to allow for a detailed analysis of the global dynamics of the collapse.
Contrary to traditional approaches based on the 3+1 formulation of the
gravitational field equations, our framework uses a foliation based on a family
of outgoing light cones, emanating from a regular center, and terminating at
future null infinity. Such a coordinate system is well adapted to the study of
interesting dynamical spacetimes in relativistic astrophysics such as stellar
core collapse and neutron star formation. Perhaps most importantly this
procedure allows for the unambiguous extraction of gravitational waves at
future null infinity without any approximation, along with the commonly used
quadrupole formalism for the gravitational wave extraction. Our results
concerning the gravitational wave signals show noticeable disagreement when
those are extracted by computing the Bondi news at future null infinity on the
one hand and by using the quadrupole formula on the other hand. We have strong
indication that for our setup the quadrupole formula on the null cone does not
lead to physical gravitational wave signals. The Bondi gravitational wave
signals extracted at infinity show typical oscillation frequencies of about 0.5
kHz.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Bulk neutrinos and core collapse supernovae
We discuss the phenomenology of neutrino mixing with bulk fermions in the
context of supernova physics. The constraints on the parameter space following
from the usual energy loss argument can be relaxed by four orders of magnitude
due to a feedback mechanism that takes place in a broad region of the parameter
space. Such a mechanism also affects the protoneutron star evolution through a
non trivial interplay with neutrino diffusion. The consistency with the SN
1987A signal is discussed, as well as the implications for deleptonization,
cooling, composition of the neutrino flux and the delayed explosion scenario.Comment: 23 pages, 5 eps figures; v2: minor comments and references added,
version to appear on Phys.Rev.
Gravitational waves from axisymmetrically oscillating neutron stars in general relativistic simulations
Gravitational waves from oscillating neutron stars in axial symmetry are
studied performing numerical simulations in full general relativity. Neutron
stars are modeled by a polytropic equation of state for simplicity. A
gauge-invariant wave extraction method as well as a quadrupole formula are
adopted for computation of gravitational waves. It is found that the
gauge-invariant variables systematically contain numerical errors generated
near the outer boundaries in the present axisymmetric computation. We clarify
their origin, and illustrate it possible to eliminate the dominant part of the
systematic errors. The best corrected waveforms for oscillating and rotating
stars currently contain errors of magnitude in the local wave
zone. Comparing the waveforms obtained by the gauge-invariant technique with
those by the quadrupole formula, it is shown that the quadrupole formula yields
approximate gravitational waveforms besides a systematic underestimation of the
amplitude of where and denote the mass and the radius of
neutron stars. However, the wave phase and modulation of the amplitude can be
computed accurately. This indicates that the quadrupole formula is a useful
tool for studying gravitational waves from rotating stellar core collapse to a
neutron star in fully general relativistic simulations. Properties of the
gravitational waveforms from the oscillating and rigidly rotating neutron stars
are also addressed paying attention to the oscillation associated with
fundamental modes
Axisymmetric general relativistic hydrodynamics: Long-term evolution of neutron stars and stellar collapse to neutron stars and black holes
We report a new implementation for axisymmetric simulation in full general
relativity. In this implementation, the Einstein equations are solved using the
Nakamura-Shibata formulation with the so-called cartoon method to impose an
axisymmetric boundary condition, and the general relativistic hydrodynamic
equations are solved using a high-resolution shock-capturing scheme based on an
approximate Riemann solver. As tests, we performed the following simulations:
(i) long-term evolution of non-rotating and rapidly rotating neutron stars,
(ii) long-term evolution of neutron stars of a high-amplitude damping
oscillation accompanied with shock formation, (iii) collapse of unstable
neutron stars to black holes, and (iv) stellar collapses to neutron stars. The
tests (i)--(iii) were carried out with the -law equation of state, and
the test (iv) with a more realistic parametric equation of state for
high-density matter. We found that this new implementation works very well: It
is possible to perform the simulations for stable neutron stars for more than
10 dynamical time scales, to capture strong shocks formed at stellar core
collapses, and to accurately compute the mass of black holes formed after the
collapse and subsequent accretion. In conclusion, this implementation is robust
enough to apply to astrophysical problems such as stellar core collapse of
massive stars to a neutron star and black hole, phase transition of a neutron
star to a high-density star, and accretion-induced collapse of a neutron star
to a black hole. The result for the first simulation of stellar core collapse
to a neutron star started from a realistic initial condition is also presented.Comment: 28 pages, to appear in PRD 67, 0440XX (2003
Measuring the angular momentum distribution in core-collapse supernova progenitors with gravitational waves
Gravity Wave and Neutrino Bursts from Stellar Collapse: A Sensitive Test of Neutrino Masses
New methods are proposed with the goal to determine absolute neutrino masses
from the simultaneous observation of the bursts of neutrinos and gravitational
waves emitted during a stellar collapse. It is shown that the neutronization
electron neutrino flash and the maximum amplitude of the gravitational wave
signal are tightly synchronized with the bounce occuring at the end of the core
collapse on a timescale better than 1 ms. The existing underground neutrino
detectors (SuperKamiokande, SNO, ...) and the gravity wave antennas soon to
operate (LIGO, Virgo, ...) are well matched in their performance for detecting
galactic supernovae and for making use of the proposed approach. Several
methods are described, which apply to the different scenarios depending on
neutrino mixing. Given the present knowledge on neutrino oscillations, the
methods proposed are sensitive to a mass range where neutrinos would
essentially be mass-degenerate. The 95 % C.L. upper limit which can be achieved
varies from 0.75 eV/c2 for large electron neutrino survival probabilities to
1.1 eV/c2 when in practice all electron neutrinos convert into muon or tau
neutrinos. The sensitivity is nearly independent of the supernova distance.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure