Electromagnetic power of merging and collapsing compact objects

Abstract

[Abridged] Electromagnetic emission can be produced as a precursor to the merger, as a prompt emission during the collapse of a NS and at the spin-down stage of the resulting BH. We demonstrate that the time evolution of the axisymmetric force-free magnetic fields can be expressed in terms of the hyperbolic Grad-Shafranov equation. We find exact non-linear time-dependent split-monopole structure of magnetosphere driven by spinning and collapsing NS in Schwarzschild geometry. Based on this solution, we argue that the collapse of a NS into the BH happens smoothly, without natural formation of current sheets or other dissipative structures on the open field lines and, thus, does not allow the magnetic field to become disconnected from the star and escape to infinity. Thus, as long as an isolated Kerr BH can produce plasma and currents, it does not lose its open magnetic field lines, its magnetospheric structure evolved towards a split monopole and the BH spins down electromagnetically. The "no hair theorem", which assumes that the outside medium is a vacuum, is not applicable in this case: highly conducting plasma introduces a topological constraint forbidding the disconnection of the magnetic field lines from the BH. Eventually, a single random large scale spontaneous reconnection event will lead to magnetic field release, shutting down the electromagnetic BH engine forever. We also discuss the nature of short Gamma Ray Bursts and suggest that the similarity of the early afterglows properties of long and short GRBs can be related to the fact that in both cases a spinning BH can retains magnetic field for sufficiently long time to extract a large fraction of its rotation energy and produce high energy emission via the internal dissipation in the wind.