1 research outputs found
Post-Newtonian Models of Binary Neutron Stars
Using an energy variational method, we calculate quasi-equilibrium
configurations of binary neutron stars modeled as compressible triaxial
ellipsoids obeying a polytropic equation of state. Our energy functional
includes terms both for the internal hydrodynamics of the stars and for the
external orbital motion. We add the leading post-Newtonian (PN) corrections to
the internal and gravitational energies of the stars, and adopt hybrid orbital
terms which are fully relativistic in the test-mass limit and always accurate
to PN order. The total energy functional is varied to find quasi-equilibrium
sequences for both corotating and irrotational binaries in circular orbits. We
examine how the orbital frequency at the innermost stable circular orbit
depends on the polytropic index n and the compactness parameter GM/Rc^2. We
find that, for a given GM/Rc^2, the innermost stable circular orbit along an
irrotational sequence is about 17% larger than the innermost secularly stable
circular orbit along the corotating sequence when n=0.5, and 20% larger when
n=1. We also examine the dependence of the maximum neutron star mass on the
orbital frequency and find that, if PN tidal effects can be neglected, the
maximum equilibrium mass increases as the orbital separation decreases.Comment: 53 pages, LaTex, 9 figures as 10 postscript files, accepted by Phys.
Rev. D, replaced version contains updated reference