Merging ``real'' neutron stars for gravitational waves and electromagnetic counterparts

Abstract

Having more-or-less succeeded in learning to stably evolve Einstein’s equations, numerical relativity is taking the leap to including the physics of neutron stars, which will enable us to construct truly realistic pictures of neutron star-neutron star and black hole-neutron star binary mergers. The neutron star profile affects late inspirals and mergers, leaving its imprint on gravitational waveforms and electromagnetic counterpart signals. Furthermore, we expect neutrino radiation, magnetic field, and nuclear recombination effects to drive the post-merger evolution. In this talk, I will describe some recent neutron star merger simulations combining nuclear physics and general relativity. The goal is to connect assumptions about the nuclear equation of state and the premerger binary to resulting binary trajectories, matter outflows, accretion disk dynamics, and neutrino energy output. These can then hopefully be connected to observable signals in the form of gravitational waves, kilonovae, and gamma ray bursts. It is found that an interesting variety of disks, outflows, and neutrino bursts are possible. Connections to observables are being attempted by tracking nuclear reactions in tidal ejecta and estimating energy injection to gamma ray bursts from neutrino annihilation and other sources. Meanwhile, non-vacuum inspiral simulations are finally approaching the length and accuracy needed for interesting comparisons with binary black hole waveforms and post-Newtonian predictions, these being steps toward a reliable characterization of the imprint of the nuclear equation of state on the gravitational waves.