Unstable modes of hypermassive compact stars driven by viscosity and gravitational radiation

Abstract

ABSTRACT We study the oscillation modes of differential rotating remnants of binary neutron star inspirals by modelling them as incompressible Riemann ellipsoids parametrized by the ratio f of their internal circulation to the rotation frequency. The effects of viscosity and gravitational radiation on the modes are studied, and it is shown that these bodies exhibit generic instability towards gravitational radiation akin to the Chandrasekhar–Friedman–Schutz instability for uniformly rotating stars. The odd-parity modes are unstable for all values of f (except for the spherical model) and deformations, whereas the even parity unstable modes appear only in highly eccentric ellipsoids. We quantify the modification of the modes with the varying mass of the model and the magnitude of the viscosity. The modes are weakly dependent on the range of the masses relevant to binary neutron star mergers. Large turbulent viscosity can lead to a suppression of the gravitational-radiation instability, whereas kinematical viscosity has a negligible influence on the modes and their damping time-scales.