Three dimensional evolution of differentially rotating magnetized neutron stars

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics code with mesh refinement, used to simulate differentially rotating magnetized neutron stars, revealing a magnetically driven outflow with kink instability.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel 3D GRMHD code with fixed mesh refinement and divergence-free magnetic field handling, enabling realistic neutron star simulations.

Findings

Magnetically driven outflow observed from neutron stars

Outflow exhibits kink instability

Results consistent with previous axisymmetric simulations

Abstract

We construct a new three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics code, in which a fixed mesh refinement technique is implemented. To ensure the divergence-free condition as well as the magnetic flux conservation, we employ the method by Balsara (2001). Using this new code, we evolve differentially rotating magnetized neutron stars, and find that a magnetically driven outflow is launched from the star exhibiting a kink instability. The matter ejection rate and Poynting flux are still consistent with our previous finding (Shibata et al., 2011) obtained in axisymmetric simulations.