Merger of binary neutron stars with realistic equations of state in full general relativity

TL;DR

This paper presents full general relativity simulations of binary neutron star mergers using realistic equations of state, revealing thresholds for black hole formation and gravitational wave signatures of hypermassive neutron stars.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid EOS approach for realistic nuclear matter and provides detailed gravitational wave predictions for different merger outcomes.

Findings

Black hole formation threshold depends on EOS (~2.7Mo for SLy, ~2.5Mo for FPS)

Hypermassive neutron stars emit quasiperiodic gravitational waves at 3-4 kHz

Potential detectability of gravitational waves within 100 Mpc for certain mergers

Abstract

We present numerical results of three-dimensional simulations for the merger of binary neutron stars (BNSs) in full general relativity. Hybrid equations of state (EOSs) are adopted to mimic realistic nuclear EOSs. In this approach, we divide the EOSs into two parts, i.e., the thermal part and the cold part. For the cold part, we assign a fitting formula for realistic EOSs of cold nuclear matter slightly modifying the formula developed by Haensel and Potekhin. We adopt the SLy and FPS EOSs for which the maximum allowed ADM mass of cold and spherical neutron stars (NSs) is ~ 2.04Mo and 1.80Mo, respectively. Simulations are performed for BNSs of the total ADM mass in the range between 2.4Mo and 2.8Mo with the rest-mass ratio Q_M to be in the range 0.9 < Q_M < 1. It is found that if the total ADM mass of the system is larger than a threshold M_{thr}, a black hole (BH) is promptly formed in the merger irrespective of the mass ratios. In the other case, the outcome is a hypermassive NS of a large ellipticity, which results from the large adiabatic index of the realistic EOSs adopted. The value of M_{thr} depends on the EOS: ~ 2.7Mo and ~ 2.5Mo for the SLy and FPS EOSs, respectively. Gravitational waves are computed in terms of a gauge-invariant wave extraction technique. In the formation of the hypermassive NS, quasiperiodic gravitational waves of a large amplitude and of frequency between 3 and 4 kHz are emitted. The estimated emission time scale is < 100 ms, after which the hypermassive NS collapses to a BH. Because of the long emission time, the effective amplitude may be large enough to be detected by advanced laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors if the distance to the source is smaller than ~ 100 Mpc.