Efficient magnetic-field amplification due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in binary neutron star mergers
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena2015-12-23v2Cosmology and Nongalactic AstrophysicsSolar and Stellar AstrophysicsGeneral Relativity and Quantum CosmologyNuclear Theory
We explore magnetic-field amplification due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability during binary neutron star mergers. By performing high-resolution general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations with a resolution of 17.5 m for 4--5 ms after the onset of the merger on the Japanese supercomputer "K", we find that an initial magnetic field of moderate maximum strength 1013 G is amplified at least by a factor of ≈103. We also explore the saturation of the magnetic-field energy and our result shows that it is likely to be ≳4×1050 erg, which is ≳0.1% of the bulk kinetic energy of the merging binary neutron stars.
@article{arxiv.1509.09205,
title = {Efficient magnetic-field amplification due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in binary neutron star mergers},
author = {Kenta Kiuchi and Pablo Cerdá-Durán and Koutarou Kyutoku and Yuichiro Sekiguchi and Masaru Shibata},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.09205},
year = {2015}
}