General Relativistic Simulations of Binary Black Hole-Neutron Stars: Precursor Electromagnetic Signals
- Zachariah B. Etienne
- Vasileios Paschalidis
- Stuart L. Shapiro
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract
We perform the first general relativistic force-free simulations of neutron star magnetospheres in orbit about spinning and non-spinning black holes. We find promising precursor electromagnetic emission: typical Poynting luminosities at, e.g., an orbital separation of 
are ^{2}(M_{NS}/1.4M_{\odot})^{2})
erg/s. The Poynting flux peaks within a broad beam of ~ 40o in the azimuthal direction and within ~ 60o from the orbital plane, establishing a possible lighthouse effect. Our calculations, though preliminary, preview more detailed simulations of these systems that we plan to perform in the future.
arXiv:1304.1805
[PRD 88, 021504, (2013)]
Rendering
These visualizations were created using both VisIt and ZIB Amira software [D. Stalling, M. Westerhoff, and H.-C. Hege, in The Visualization Handbook; Amira: A Highly Interactive System for Visual Data Analysis, edited by C. D. Hansen and C. R. Johnson (Elsevier, 2005) Chap. 38, pp. 749-767, ISBN 978-0-12-387582-2]. We gratefully acknowledge ZIB Amira for providing us a license.
