Merger and Mass Ejection of Neutron Star Binaries

Abstract

Mergers of binary neutron stars and black hole–neutron star binaries are among the most promising sources for ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors and are also high-energy astrophysical phenomena, as illustrated by the observations of GWs and electromagnetic (EM) waves in the event of GW170817. Mergers of these neutron star binaries are also the most promising sites for r-process nucleosynthesis. Numerical simulation in full general relativity (numerical relativity) is a unique approach to the theoretical prediction of the merger process, GWs emitted, mass ejection process, and resulting EM emission. We summarize the current understanding of the processes of neutron star mergers and subsequent mass ejection based on the results of the latest numerical-relativity simulations. We emphasize that the predictions of the numerical-relativity simulations agree broadly with the optical and IR observations of GW170817.