Gravitational waves from phase-transition-induced collapse of neutron stars

Abstract

We study the gravitational radiation from gravitational collapses of rapidly rotating neutron stars induced by a phase transition from normal nuclear matter to a mixed phase of quark and nuclear matter in the core of the stars. The study is based on self-consistent three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations with Newtonian gravity and a high-resolution shock-capturing scheme and the quadrupole formula of gravitational radiation. The quark matter of the mixed phase is described by the MIT bag model and the normal nuclear matter is described by an ideal fluid EOS. While there is a broad range of interesting astrophysics problems associated with the phase-transition-induced gravitational collapse, we focus on the following: First, we determine the magnitudes of the emitted gravitational waves for several collapse scenarios, with gravitational wave amplitudes ranging from 0.3 × 10 -22 to 1.5 × 10 -22 for a source distance of 10 Mpc and the energy being carried away by the gravitational waves ranging between 0.3 × 10 51 and 2.8 × 10 51 ergs. Second, we determine the types and frequencies of the fluid oscillation modes excited by the process. In particular, we find that the gravitational wave signals produced by the collapses are dominated by the fundamental quadrupole and quasi-radial modes of the final equilibrium configurations. The two types of modes have comparable amplitude, with the latter mode representing the coupling between the rotation and radial oscillations induced by the collapse. In some collapse scenarios, we find that the oscillations are damped out within a few dynamical timescales due to the growth of differential rotations and the formation of strong shock waves. Third, we show that the spectrum of the gravitational wave signals is sensitive to the EOS, implying that the detection of such gravitational waves could provide useful constraints on the EOS of newly born quark stars. Finally, for the range of rotation periods studied, we find no sign of the development of nonaxisymmetric dynamical instabilities in the collapse process. © 2006. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.