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Title: ECCENTRIC BLACK-HOLE-NEUTRON-STAR MERGERS

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal Letters
 [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Center for Gravitation and Cosmology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211 (United States)
  2. Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)

Within the next few years gravitational waves (GWs) from merging black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs) may be directly detected, making a thorough theoretical understanding of these systems a high priority. As an additional motivation, these systems may represent a subset of short-duration gamma-ray burst progenitors. BH-NS mergers are expected to result from primordial, quasi-circular inspiral as well as dynamically formed capture binaries. The latter channel allows mergers with high eccentricity, resulting in a richer variety of outcomes. We perform general relativistic simulations of BH-NS interactions with a range of impact parameters, and find significant variation in the properties of these events that have potentially observable consequences, namely, the GW signature, remnant accretion disk mass, and amount of unbound material.

OSTI ID:
21562499
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 737, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/737/1/L5; ISSN 2041-8205
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English