Development of General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Code and its Application to Central Engine of Long Gamma-Ray Bursts

TL;DR

This paper develops a 2D general relativistic MHD code, confirms its reliability, and applies it to simulate jet formation in long gamma-ray burst progenitors, revealing insights into jet structure, energy, and launching mechanisms.

Contribution

The study introduces a new GRMHD simulation code and demonstrates its application to modeling relativistic jets in GRB progenitors, highlighting the jet launching process and energy characteristics.

Findings

Jet is launched from the progenitor's center.

Jet structure resembles previous models with Poynting flux and funnel-wall components.

Energy flux per unit rest-mass flux suggests potential for high Lorentz factors.

Abstract

In order to investigate formation of relativistic jets at the center of a progenitor of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), we develop a two-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) code. We show the code passes many, well-known test calculations, by which the reliability of the code is confirmed. Then we perform a numerical simulation of a collapsar using a realistic progenitor model. It is shown that a jet is launched from the center of the progenitor. We also find that the mass accretion rate after the launch of the jet shows rapid time variability that resembles to a typical time profile of a GRB. The structure of the jet is similar to the previous study: a poynting flux jet is surrounded by a funnel-wall jet. Even at the final stage of the simulation, bulk Lorentz factor of the jet is still low, and total energy of the jet is still as small as 10^48 erg. However, we find that the energy flux per unit rest-mass flux is as high as 10^2 at the bottom of the jet. Thus we conclude that the bulk Lorentz factor of the jet can be potentially high when it propagates outward. It is shown that the outgoing poynting flux exists at the horizon around the polar region, which proves that the Blandford-Znajek mechanism is working. However, we conclude that the jet is launched mainly by the magnetic field amplified by the gravitational collapse and differential rotation around the black hole, rather than the Blandford-Znajek mechanism.