We perform hydrodynamical simulations of neutron-star mergers for a large sample of temperature-dependent, nuclear equations of state, and determine the threshold mass above which the merger remnant promptly collapses to form a black hole. We find th
at, depending on the equation of state, the threshold mass is larger than the maximum mass of a non-rotating star in isolation by between 30 and 70 per cent. Our simulations also show that the ratio between the threshold mass and maximum mass is tightly correlated with the compactness of the non-rotating maximum-mass configuration. We speculate on how this relation can be used to derive constraints on neutron-star properties from future observations.
We propose and explore a stationary 1+log slicing condition for the construction of solutions to Einsteins constraint equations. For stationary spacetimes, these initial data will give a stationary foliation when evolved with moving puncture gauge co
nditions that are often used in black hole evolutions. The resulting slicing is time-independent and agrees with the slicing generated by being dragged along a time-like Killing vector of the spacetime. When these initial data are evolved with moving puncture gauge conditions, numerical errors arising from coordinate evolution are minimized. In the construction of initial data for binary black holes it is often assumed that there exists an approximate helical Killing vector that generates the binarys orbit. We show that, unfortunately, 1+log slices that are stationary with respect to such a helical Killing vector cannot be asymptotically flat, unless the spacetime possesses an additional axial Killing vector.
