No Arabic abstract
We present a code for solving the coupled Einstein-hydrodynamics equations to evolve relativistic, self-gravitating fluids. The Einstein field equations are solved in generalized harmonic coordinates on one grid using pseudospectral methods, while the fluids are evolved on another grid using shock-capturing finite difference or finite volume techniques. We show that the code accurately evolves equilibrium stars and accretion flows. Then we simulate an equal-mass nonspinning black hole-neutron star binary, evolving through the final four orbits of inspiral, through the merger, to the final stationary black hole. The gravitational waveform can be reliably extracted from the simulation.
At the 20-th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics there was a plenary talk devoted to the recent developments in classical Relativity. In that talk the problems of gravitational collapse, collisions of black holes, and of black holes as celestial bodies were discussed. But probably the problems of the internal structure of black holes are a real great challenge. In my talk I want to outline the recent achievements in our understanding of the nature of the singularity (and beyond!) inside a realistic rotating black hole. This presentation also addresses the following questions: Can we see what happens inside a black hole? Can a falling observer cross the singularity without being crushed? An answer to these questions is probably yes.
We consider the observation of stellar-mass black holes binaries with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Preliminary results based on Fisher information matrix analyses have suggested that gravitational waves from those sources could be very sensitive to possible deviations from the theory of general relativity and from the strong equivalence principle during the low-frequency binary inspiral. We perform a full Markov Chain Monte Carlo Bayesian analysis to quantify the sensitivity of these signals to two phenomenological modifications of general relativity, namely a putative gravitational dipole emission and a non-zero mass for the graviton, properly accounting for the detectors response. Moreover, we consider a scenario where those sources could be observed also with Earth-based detectors, which should measure the coalescence time with precision better than $1 {rm ms}$. This constraint on the coalescence time further improves the bounds that we can set on those phenomenological deviations from general relativity. We show that tests of dipole radiation and the gravitons mass should improve respectively by seven and half an order(s) of magnitude over current bounds. Finally, we discuss under which conditions one may claim the detection of a modification to general relativity.
We present results about the effect of the use of a stiffer equation of state, namely the ideal-fluid $Gamma=2.75$ ones, on the dynamical bar-mode instability in rapidly rotating polytropic models of neutron stars in full General Relativity. We determine the change on the critical value of the instability parameter $beta$ for the emergence of the instability when the adiabatic index $Gamma$ is changed from 2 to 2.75 in order to mimic the behavior of a realistic equation of state. In particular, we show that the threshold for the onset of the bar-mode instability is reduced by this change in the stiffness and give a precise quantification of the change in value of the critical parameter $beta_c$. We also extend the analysis to lower values of $beta$ and show that low-beta shear instabilities are present also in the case of matter described by a simple polytropic equation of state.
Gravitational waves from binary neutron star (BNS) and black hole/neutron star (BHNS) inspirals are primary sources for detection by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. The tidal forces acting on the neutron stars induce changes in the phase evolution of the gravitational waveform, and these changes can be used to constrain the nuclear equation of state. Current methods of generating BNS and BHNS waveforms rely on either computationally challenging full 3D hydrodynamical simulations or approximate analytic solutions. We introduce a new method for computing inspiral waveforms for BNS/BHNS systems by adding the post-Newtonian (PN) tidal effects to full numerical simulations of binary black holes (BBHs), effectively replacing the nontidal terms in the PN expansion with BBH results. Comparing a waveform generated with this method against a full hydrodynamical simulation of a BNS inspiral yields a phase difference of $<1$ radian over $sim 15$ orbits. The numerical phase accuracy required of BNS simulations to measure the accuracy of the method we present here is estimated as a function of the tidal deformability parameter ${lambda}$.
The coalescence of a neutron star with a black hole is a primary science target of ground-based gravitational wave detectors. Constraining or measuring the neutron star spin directly from gravitational wave observations requires knowledge of the dependence of the emission properties of these systems on the neutron star spin. This paper lays foundations for this task, by developing a numerical method to construct initial data for black hole--neutron star binaries with arbitrary spin on the neutron star. We demonstrate the robustness of the code by constructing initial-data sets in large regions of the parameter space. In addition to varying the neutron star spin-magnitude and spin-direction, we also explore neutron star compactness, mass-ratio, black hole spin, and black hole spin-direction. Specifically, we are able to construct initial data sets with neutron stars spinning near centrifugal break-up, and with black hole spins as large as $S_{rm BH}/M_{rm BH}^2=0.99$.