2023/03/22 by Luciano Combi, Combi, Luciano, Daniel M. Siegel +1 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Magnetic confinement fusion research #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2303.12284
openalex publication_date 2023/03/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We perform high-resolution three-dimensional general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations with neutrino transport of binary neutron star (BNS) mergers resulting in a long-lived remnant neutron star, with properties typical of galactic BNS and consistent with those inferred for the first observed BNS merger GW170817. We demonstrate self-consistently that within \lesssim 30 ms post-merger magnetized (σ∼ 5-10) twin polar jets emerge with asymptotic Lorentz factor Γ∼ 5-10, which successfully break out from the merger debris within \lesssim 20 ms. A fast (v\lesssim 0.6c), magnetized (σ∼ 0.1) wind surrounds the jet core and generates a UV/blue kilonova precursor on timescales of hours, similar to the precursor signal due to free neutron decay in fast dynamical ejecta. Post-merger ejecta are quickly dominated by MHD-driven outflows from an accretion disk. We demonstrate that within only 50 ms post-merger, \gtrsim 2× 10-2M_\odot of lanthanide-free, quasi-spherical ejecta with velocity ∼ 0.1c is launched, yielding a kilonova signal consistent with GW170817 on timescales of \lesssim 5 d.