Mar 26–28, 2025
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
America/Toronto timezone

Long-term impact of the magnetic-field strength on the evolution and electromagnetic emission by neutron-star merger remnants

Mar 27, 2025, 10:00 a.m.
15m
PI/4-405 - Bob Room (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)

PI/4-405 - Bob Room

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

60
Contributed Talk

Speaker

Dr Michail Chabanov (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Description

Numerical simulations are essential to understand the complex physics accompanying the merger of binary
systems of neutron stars. However, these simulations become computationally challenging when they have to
model the merger remnants on timescales over which secular phenomena, such as the launching of magneti-
cally driven outflows, develop. To tackle these challenges, we have recently developed a hybrid approach that
combines, via a hand-off transition, a fully general-relativistic code (FIL) with a more efficient code mak-
ing use of the conformally flat approximation (BHAC+). We here report important additional developments of
BHAC+ consisting of the inclusion of gravitational-wave radiation-reaction contributions and of higher-order
formulations of the equations of general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. Both improvements have allowed
us to explore scenarios that would have been computationally prohibitive otherwise. More specifically, we have
investigated the impact of the magnetic-field strength on the long-term (i.e., ∼ 200 ms) and high-resolution
(i.e., 150 m) evolutions of the “magnetar” resulting from the merger of two neutron stars with a realistic equa-
tion of state. In this way, and for sufficiently large magnetic fields, we observe the loss of differential rotation
and the generation of magnetic flares in the outer layers of the remnant. These flares, driven mostly by the
Parker instability, are responsible for intense and collimated Poynting flux outbursts and low-latitude emissions.
This novel phenomenology offers the possibility of seeking corresponding signatures from the observations of
short gamma-ray bursts and hence revealing the existence of a long-lived strongly magnetized remnant.

Presenter's Name Michail Chabanov
Presenter's Email Address [email protected]
Recording Permission YES
Virtual Audience Permission YES
Photography Permission YES

Primary authors

Harry Ho-Yin Ng (Frankfurt University) Dr Jin-Liang Jiang (Frankfurt University)

Co-authors

Prof. Luciano Rezzolla (Frankfurt University) Dr Michail Chabanov (Rochester Institute of Technology)

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External references