2012/12/31 by Kenta Hotokezaka, Kenta Kiuchi, Koutarou Kyutoku +4 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.87.024001
28 pages, 19 figures, accepted to Physical Review D
arxiv created 2013/01/31 · arxiv updated 2015/06/12
Numerical-relativity simulations for the merger of binary neutron stars are performed for a variety of equations of state (EOSs) and for a plausible range of the neutron-star mass, focusing primarily on the properties of the material ejected from the system. We find that a fraction of the material is ejected as a mildly relativistic and mildly anisotropic outflow with the typical and maximum velocities ∼ 0.15 -- 0.25c and ∼ 0.5 -- 0.8c (where c is the speed of light), respectively, and that the total ejected rest mass is in a wide range 10-4 -- 10-2M\odot, which depends strongly on the EOS, the total mass, and the mass ratio. The total kinetic energy ejected is also in a wide range between 1049 and 1051 \rm ergs. The numerical results suggest that for a binary of canonical total mass 2.7M\odot, the outflow could generate an electromagnetic signal observable by the planned telescopes through the production of heavy-element unstable nuclei via the r-process or through the formation of blast waves during the interaction with the interstellar matter, if the EOS and mass of the binary are favorable ones.