Equilibrium sequences of differentially rotating stars with post-merger-like rotational profiles

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present equilibrium sequences of rotating relativistic stars, constructed with a new rotation law that was proposed by Uryū et al. (2017). We choose rotational parameters motivated by simulations of binary neutron star merger remnants, but otherwise adopt a cold, relativistic N = 1 polytropic EOS, in order to perform a detailed comparison to published equilibrium sequences that used the Komatsu, Eriguchi and Hachisu (1989) rotation law. We find a small influence of the choice of rotation law on the mass of the equilibrium models and a somewhat larger influence on their radius. The versatility of the new rotation law allows us to construct models that have a similar rotational profile and axial ratio as observed for merger remnants, while at the same time being quasi-spherical. More specifically, we construct equilibrium sequence variations with different degrees of differential rotation and identify type A and type C solutions, similar to the corresponding types in the classification of Ansorg, Gondek-Rosińska and Villain (2009). While our models are highly accurate solutions of the fully general relativistic structure equations, we demonstrate that for models relevant to merger remnants the IWM-CFC approximation still maintains an acceptable accuracy.