Collision of two neutron stars
(with top chopped off)
|
Description: Animation of the coalescence of two magnetised
neutron stars, with the colours showing magnetic field strengths in the
material at and below the orbital plane. The animation shows the first
12 milliseconds of the merger and has dimensions of
approximately 140 km from left to right. The stars move gradually
towards each other and then merge in a ``plunging phase'' within about
one orbital period. This object sheds mass into spiral arms that are
subsequently wrapped around the central object to form a hot torus. The
magnetic field is amplified in the shear instability between the stars
and subsequently advected
with the matter to cover the surface of the central merger remnant.
Formats:
- Long 800x534:
.mov (51Mb),
.flc (103Mb)
- Short 800x534:
.mov (21Mb),
.flc (39Mb)
- High-res 1600x1068:
.mov (132Mb)
|
Collision of two neutron stars
(with top chopped off)
|
Description: Animation of the coalescence of two magnetised
neutron stars, with the colours showing magnetic field strengths in the
material at and below the orbital plane. The animation shows the first
12 milliseconds of the merger and has dimensions of
approximately 140 km from left to right. The stars move gradually
towards each other and then merge in a ``plunging phase'' within about
one orbital period. This object sheds mass into spiral arms that are
subsequently wrapped around the central object to form a hot torus. The
magnetic field is amplified in the shear instability between the stars
and subsequently advected
with the matter to cover the surface of the central merger remnant.
Formats:
- Long 800x534:
.mov (51Mb),
.flc (103Mb)
- Short 800x534:
.mov (21Mb),
.flc (39Mb)
- High-res 1600x1068:
.mov (132Mb)
|
Collision of two neutron stars
(full stars)
|
Description: Animation of the coalescence of two magnetised
neutron stars, with the colours showing magnetic field strengths at the
surface. The animation shows the first 8 milliseconds of the merger and
has dimensions of
approximately 140 km from left to right. The stars move gradually
towards each other and then merge in a "plunging phase" within about
one orbital period. This object sheds mass into spiral arms that are
subsequently wrapped around the central object to form a hot torus. The
magnetic field is rapidly amplified and
strong field pockets (coloured yellow-white) can be seen to quickly
cover the surface of the central merger remnant.
Formats:
|
Collision of two neutron stars
(slice in the XY-plane)
|
Description: The evolution of the magnetic field is shown as a cross section through the
midplane. Fluid instabilities cause the interface to curl up into vortices. It is in these vortices
that the field is strongly amplified.
The strength of the magnetic field may be compared to the colour bar on the right, where
field strengths > 10^15G represent those stronger than any previously known (i.e. in Magnetars).
Formats:
- Long 850x680:
.mov (146Mb)
|
|
|
Description: In this animation, two stars of different initial masses were used (star 1 has 1.1
times the mass of the sun, whilst star 2 has 1.6 x M_sun - in the previous simulations both stars had
mass 1.4 M_sun). The magnetic field is similarly amplified
although the geometry of the collision and subsequent torus formation is quite different.
Formats:
|
