Emergence of Microphysical Bulk Viscosity in Binary Neutron Star Postmerger Dynamics

Autor: Elias R. Most, Alexander Haber, Steven P. Harris, Ziyuan Zhang, Mark G. Alford, Jorge Noronha
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol 967, Iss 1, p L14 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2041-8213
2041-8205
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad454f
Popis: In nuclear matter in isolated neutron stars, the flavor content (e.g., proton fraction) is subject to weak interactions, establishing flavor ( β -)equilibrium. However, there can be deviations from this equilibrium during the merger of two neutron stars. We study the resulting out-of-equilibrium dynamics during the collision by incorporating direct and modified Urca processes (in the neutrino-transparent regime) into general-relativistic hydrodynamics simulations with a simplified neutrino transport scheme. We demonstrate how weak-interaction-driven bulk viscosity in postmerger simulations can emerge and assess the bulk viscous dynamics of the resulting flow. We further place limits on the impact of the postmerger gravitational-wave strain. Our results show that weak-interaction-driven bulk viscosity can potentially lead to a phase shift of the postmerger gravitational-wave spectrum, although the effect is currently on the same level as the numerical errors of our simulation.
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