Long-term impact of the magnetic-field strength on the evolution and electromagnetic emission by neutron-star merger remnants

Abstract

Numerical simulations are essential to understand the complex physics accompanying the merger of binary systems of neutron stars. However, these simulations become computationally challenging when they have to model the merger remnants on timescales over which secular phenomena, such as the launching of magneti- cally driven outflows, develop. To tackle these challenges, we have recently developed a hybrid approach that combines, via a hand-off transition, a fully general-relativistic code (FIL) with a more efficient code mak- ing use of the conformally flat approximation (BHAC+). We here report important additional developments of BHAC+ consisting of the inclusion of gravitational-wave radiation-reaction contributions and of higher-order formulations of the equations of general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. Both improvements have allowed us to explore scenarios that would have been computationally prohibitive otherwise. More specifically, we have investigated the impact of the magnetic-field strength on the long-term (i.e., ∼ 200 ms) and high-resolution (i.e., 150 m) evolutions of the “magnetar” resulting from the merger of two neutron stars with a realistic equa- tion of state. In this way, and for sufficiently large magnetic fields, we observe the loss of differential rotation and the generation of magnetic flares in the outer layers of the remnant. These flares, driven mostly by the Parker instability, are responsible for intense and collimated Poynting flux outbursts and low-latitude emissions. This novel phenomenology offers the possibility of seeking corresponding signatures from the observations of short gamma-ray bursts and hence revealing the existence of a long-lived strongly magnetized remnant.