Quasi-equilibrium models of magnetized compact objects

TL;DR

This paper develops a relativistic model for strongly magnetized neutron stars and binary systems, incorporating magnetic fields and helical symmetry, to generate initial data for studying inspiral and merger processes.

Contribution

It introduces a quasi-equilibrium formulation combining Einstein-Maxwell and MHD equations under helical symmetry, including magnetic fields, for the first time.

Findings

Formulated a numerical iterative scheme for the coupled equations.

Produced self-consistent initial data for binary neutron star and black hole systems.

Extended the first law of thermodynamics to include magnetic fields in helically symmetric systems.

Abstract

We report work towards a relativistic formulation for modeling strongly magnetized neutron stars, rotating or in a close circular orbit around another neutron star or black hole, under the approximations of helical symmetry and ideal MHD. The quasi-stationary evolution is governed by the first law of thermodynamics for helically symmetric systems, which is generalized to include magnetic fields. The formulation involves an iterative scheme for solving the Einstein-Maxwell and relativistic MHD-Euler equations numerically. The resulting configurations for binary systems could be used as self-consistent initial data for studying their inspiral and merger.