Mass ejection from the merger of binary neutron stars

Abstract

Numerical-relativity simulations for the merger of binary neutron stars are performed for a variety of equations of state (EOSs) and for a plausible range of the neutron-star mass, focusing primarily on the properties of the material ejected from the system. We find that a fraction of the material is ejected as a mildly relativistic and mildly anisotropic outflow with the typical and maximum velocities $\ensuremath{\sim}0.15--0.25c$ and $\ensuremath{\sim}0.5--0.8c$ (where $c$ is the speed of light), respectively, and that the total ejected rest mass is in a wide range ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}--{10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$, which depends strongly on the EOS, the total mass, and the mass ratio. The total kinetic energy ejected is also in a wide range between ${10}^{49}$ and ${10}^{51}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{ergs}$. The numerical results suggest that for a binary of canonical total mass $2.7{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$, the outflow could generate an electromagnetic signal observable by the planned telescopes through the production of heavy-element unstable nuclei via the $r$-process [6,20,21] or through the formation of blast waves during the interaction with the interstellar matter [7], if the EOS and mass of the binary are favorable ones.