arXiv subjects

John Ryan Westernacher-Schneider

Publications and source records attributed to John Ryan Westernacher-Schneider.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Thermal X-ray signatures in late-stage unequal-mass massive black hole binary mergers

The multi-messenger combination of gravitational waves (GWs) from merging massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) and the electromagnetic (EM) counterpart from the surrounding circumbinary disk (CBD) will open avenues to new scientific pursuits. In order to realize this science, we need to correctly localize the host galaxy of the merging MBHB. Multi-wavelength, time-dependent electromagnetic (EM) signatures can greatly facilitate the identification of the unique EM counterpart among many sources in LISA's localization volume. To this end, we studied merging unequal-mass MBHBs embedded in a CBD using high-resolution 2D simulations, with a $Γ$-law equation of state, incorporating viscous heating, shock heating and radiative cooling. We simulate each binary starting from before it decouples from the CBD until just after the merger. We compute EM signatures and identify distinct features before, during, and after the merger. We corroborate previous findings of a several order of magnitude drop in the thermal X-ray luminosity near the time of merger, but with delayed timing compared to an equal-mass system. The source remains X-ray dark for hours post-merger. Our main results are a potential new signature of a sharp spike in the thermal X-ray emission just before the tell-tale steep drop occurs. This feature may further help to identify EM counterparts of LISA's unequal MBHBs before merger without the need for extensive pre-merger monitoring. Additionally, we find a role-reversal, in which the primary out-accretes the secondary during late inspiral, which may diminish signatures originating from Doppler modulation.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Relativistic Binary Precession: Impact on Eccentric Binary Accretion and Multi-Messenger Astronomy

Recent hydrodynamical simulations have shown that circumbinary gas disks drive the orbits of binary black holes to become eccentric, even when general relativistic corrections to the orbit are significant. Here, we study the general relativistic (GR) apsidal precession of eccentric equal-mass binary black holes in circumbinary disks (CBDs) via two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. We perform a suite of simulations comparing precessing and non-precessing binaries across a range of eccentricities, semi-major axes, and precession rates. We find that the GR precession of the binary's semi-major axis can introduce a dominant modulation in the binary's accretion rate and the corresponding high-energy electromagnetic light-curves. We discuss the conditions under which this occurs and its detailed characteristics and mechanism. Finally, we discuss the potential to observe these precession signatures in electromagnetic and gravitational wave (GW) observations, as well as the precession signal's unique importance as a potential tool to constrain the mass, eccentricity, and semi-major axis of binary merger events.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Constraining the PG 1553+113 binary hypothesis: interpreting hints of a new, 22-year period

PG 1553+113 is a well-known blazar exhibiting evidence of a $\sim\! 2.2$-yr quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) in radio, optical, X-ray, and $γ$-ray bands. Since QPO mechanisms often predict multiple QPOs, we search for a second QPO in its historical optical light curve covering a century of observations. Despite challenging data quality issues, we find hints of a $21.8 \pm 4.7$ yr oscillation. On its own, this $\sim\! 22$-yr period has a modest statistical significance of $1.6σ$ when accounting for the look-elsewhere effect. However, the joint significance of both the $2.2$- and $22$-yr periods arising from colored noise alone is $\sim 3.6σ$. The next peak of the 22-yr oscillation is predicted to occur around July 2025. We find that such a $\sim\,$10:1 relation between two periods can arise in the gas dynamics of a plausible supermassive black hole binary model of PG 1553+113. While the 22-yr QPO is preliminary, an interpretation of PG 1553+113's two QPOs in this binary model suggests that the binary engine has a mass ratio $\gtrsim 0.2$, an eccentricity $\lesssim 0.1$, and accretes from a disk with characteristic aspect ratio $\sim 0.03$. The putative binary radiates nHz gravitational waves, but the amplitude is $\sim10-100$ times too low for detection by foreseeable pulsar timing arrays.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Eccentric Minidisks in Accreting Binaries

We show that gas disks around the components of an orbiting binary system (so-called minidisks) may be susceptible to a resonant instability which causes the minidisks to become significantly eccentric. Eccentricity is injected by, and also induces, regular impacts between the minidisks at roughly the orbital period of the binary. Such eccentric minidisks are seen in vertically integrated, two-dimensional simulations of a circular, equal-mass binary accreting from a circumbinary gas disk with a $Γ$-law equation of state. Minidisk eccentricity is suppressed by the use of an isothermal equation of state. However, the instability still operates, and can be revealed in a minimal disk-binary simulation by removing the circumbinary disk, and feeding the minidisks from the component positions. Minidisk eccentricity is also suppressed when the gravitational softening length is large ($\gtrsim 4\%$ of the binary semi-major axis), suggesting that its absence could be an artifact of widely adopted numerical approximations; a follow-up study in three dimensions with well-resolved, geometrically thin minidisks (aspect ratios $\lesssim 0.02$) may be needed to assess whether eccentric minidisks can occur in real astrophysical environments. If they can, the electromagnetic signature may be important for discriminating between binary and single black hole scenarios for quasi-periodic oscillations in active galactic nuclei; in turn, this might aid in targeted searches with pulsar timing arrays for individual supermassive black hole binary sources of low-frequency gravitational waves.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Self-lensing flares from black hole binaries III: general-relativistic ray tracing of circumbinary accretion simulations

Self-lensing flares (SLFs) are expected to be produced once or twice per orbit by an accreting massive black hole binary (MBHB), if the eclipsing MBHBs are observed close to edge-on. SLFs can provide valuable electromagnetic (EM) signatures to accompany the gravitational waves (GWs) detectable by the upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). EM follow-ups are crucial for, e.g., sky-localization, and constraining the Hubble constant and the graviton mass. We use high-resolution two-dimensional viscous hydrodynamical simulations of a circumbinary disk (CBD) embedding a MBHB. We then use very high-cadence output of these hydrodynamical simulation inputs for a general-relativistic ray-tracing code to produce synthetic spectra and phase-folded light curves. Our main results show a significant periodic amplification of the flux with the characteristic shape of a sharp flare with a central dip, as the foreground black hole (BH) transits across the minidisk and shadow of the background BH, respectively. These corroborate previous conclusions based on the microlensing approximation and analytical toy models of the emission geometry. We also find that at lower inclinations, without some occlusion of the minidisk emission by the CBD, shocks from quasi-periodic mass-trading between the minidisks can produce bright flares which can mimic SLFs and could hinder their identification.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Disappearing thermal X-ray emission as a tell-tale signature of merging massive black hole binaries

The upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is expected to detect gravitational waves (GWs) from massive black hole binaries (MBHB). Finding the electromagnetic (EM) counterparts for these GW events will be crucial for understanding how and where MBHBs merge, measuring their redshifts, constraining the Hubble constant and the graviton mass, and for other novel science applications. However, due to poor GW sky localisation, multi-wavelength, time-dependent electromagnetic (EM) models are needed to identify the right host galaxy among many candidates. We studied merging MBHBs embedded in a circumbinary disc using high-resolution two-dimensional simulations, with a $Γ$-law equation of state, incorporating viscous heating, shock heating, and radiative cooling. We simulate the binary from large separation until after merger, allowing us to model the decoupling of the binary from the circumbinary disc (CBD). We compute the EM signatures and identify distinct features before, during, and after the merger. Our main result is a multi-band EM signature: we find that the MBHB produces strong thermal X-ray emission until 1-2 days prior to the merger. However, as the binary decouples from the CBD, the X-ray-bright minidiscs rapidly shrink in size, become disrupted, and the accretion rate drops precipitously. As a result, the thermal X-ray luminosity drops by orders of magnitude, and the source remains X-ray dark for several days after the merger, regardless of any post-merger effects such as GW recoil or mass loss. Looking for the abrupt spectral change where the thermal X-ray disappears is a tell-tale EM signature of LISA mergers that does not require extensive pre-merger monitoring.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Dynamical Thin Disks

Thin disk accretion is often modeled in highly dynamical settings using the two-dimensional equations of viscous hydrodynamics, with viscosity representing unresolved turbulence. These equations are supposed to arise after vertical integration of the full three-dimensional equations of hydrodynamics, under the assumption of a geometrically thin disk with mirror symmetry about the midplane. But in the dynamical context, vertical dynamics are neglected by incorrectly assuming instantaneous vertical hydrostatic equilibrium. The resulting errors in the local disk height couple to the horizontal dynamics through some viscosity prescriptions and gravitational softening models. Furthermore, the viscous terms in the horizontal equations are only complete if they are inserted after vertical integration, as if the system is actually two-dimensional. Since turbulence breaks mirror symmetry, it is more physically correct to insert a turbulence model at the three-dimensional level, and impose mirror symmetry only on average. Thus, some viscous terms are usually missing. We revisit the vertical integration procedure, restricting to the regime of a Newtonian, non-self-gravitating disk. We obtain six evolution equations with only horizontal dependence, which determine the local vertical position and velocity of the disk surface, in addition to the usual fluid variables. This "2.5-dimensional" formulation opens the door to efficiently study vertical oscillations of thin disks in dynamical settings, and to improve the treatment of unresolved turbulence. As a demonstration, by including viscous stress at the three-dimensional level, we recover missing viscous terms which involve the vertical variables. We also propose a resummation of the vertically integrated gravitational force, which has a strikingly similar form to a gravitational softening model advocated for in protoplanetary disk studies.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

Multi-band light curves from eccentric accreting supermassive black hole binaries

We use long-run, high-resolution hydrodynamics simulations to compute the multi-wavelength light curves (LCs) from thermal disk emission around accreting equal-mass supermassive black hole (BH) binaries, with a focus on revealing binary eccentricity. LCs are obtained by modeling the disk thermodynamics with an adiabatic equation of state, a local blackbody cooling prescription, and corrections to approximate the effects of radiation pressure. We find that modulation of multi-band LCs on the orbital time scale are generally in-phase (to within $\sim\,$2% of a binary orbital period), but they contain pulse substructure in the time domain that is not necessarily reflected in BH accretion rates $\dot M$. We thus predict that binary-hosting AGN will exhibit highly correlated, in-phase, periodic brightness modulations in their low-energy disk emission. However, detectability of these modulations in multi-wavelength observing campaigns could be seriously compromised because observed stochastic variability in AGNs typically has a higher amplitude than our proposed signal. It is possible that observations over temporal baselines of many binary periods may make the signal more prominent, but this would need to be analyzed carefully. If jet emission is predicted by $\dot{M}$, then we predict a weaker correlation with low-energy disk emission due to the differing sub-peak structure. For the binary parameters we explore, we show that LC variability due to hydrodynamics likely dominates Doppler brightening for all equal-mass binaries with disk Mach numbers $\lesssim 20$. A promising signature of eccentricity is weak or absent "lump" periodicity. We find hints that a significant lag exists between $\dot{M}$ and low-energy disk emission for circular binaries, but they are in-phase for eccentric binaries, which might explain some "orphan" blazar flares with no $γ$-ray counterpart.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

Gamma-radiation sky maps from compact binaries

We study sky maps and light curves of gamma-ray emission from neutron stars in compact binaries, and in isolation. We briefly review some gamma-ray emission models, and reproduce sky maps from a standard isolated pulsar in the Separatrix Layer model. We consider isolated pulsars with several variations of a dipole magnetic field, including superpositions, and predict their gamma-ray emission. Our results provide new heuristics on what can and cannot be inferred about the magnetic field configuration of pulsars from high-energy observations. We find that typical double-peak light curves can be produced by pulsars with significant multipole structure beyond a single dipole. For binary systems, we also present a simple approximation that is useful for rapid explorations of binary magnetic field structure. Finally, we predict the gamma-ray emission pattern from a compact black hole-neutron star binary moments before merger by applying the Separatrix Layer model to data simulated in full general relativity; we find that face-on observers receive little emission, equatorial observers see one broad peak, and more generic observers typically see two peaks.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Extremely High-Order Convergence in Simulations of Relativistic Stars

We provide a road towards obtaining gravitational waveforms from inspiraling material binaries with an accuracy viable for third-generation gravitational wave detectors, without necessarily advancing computational hardware or massively-parallel software infrastructure. We demonstrate a proof-of-principle 1+1-dimensional numerical implementation that exhibits up to 7th-order convergence for highly dynamic barotropic stars in curved spacetime, and numerical errors up to 6 orders of magnitude smaller than a standard method. Aside from high-order interpolation errors (Runge's phenomenon), there are no obvious fundamental obstacles to obtaining convergence of even higher order. The implementation uses a novel surface-tracking method, where the surface is evolved and high-order accurate boundary conditions are imposed there. Computational memory does not need to be allocated to fluid variables in the vacuum region of spacetime. We anticipate the application of this new method to full $3\! +\! 1$-dimensional simulations of the inspiral phase of compact binary systems with at least one material body. The additional challenge of a deformable surface must be addressed in multiple spatial dimensions, but it is also an opportunity to input more precise surface tension physics.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

Hamilton-Jacobi hydrodynamics of pulsating relativistic stars

The dynamics of self-gravitating fluid bodies is described by the Euler-Einstein system of partial differential equations. The break-down of well-posedness on the fluid-vacuum interface remains a challenging open problem, which is manifested in simulations of oscillating or inspiraling binary neutron-stars. We formulate and implement a well-posed canonical hydrodynamic scheme, suitable for neutron-star simulations in numerical general relativity. The scheme uses a variational principle by Carter-Lichnerowicz stating that barotropic fluid motions are conformally geodesic and Helmholtz's third theorem stating that initially irrotational flows remain irrotational. We apply this scheme in 3+1 numerical general relativity to evolve the canonical momentum of a fluid element via the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. We explore a regularization scheme for the Euler equations, that uses a fiducial atmosphere in hydrostatic equilibrium and allows the pressure to vanish, while preserving strong hyperbolicity on the vacuum boundary. The new regularization scheme resolves a larger number of radial oscillation modes compared to standard, non-equilibrium atmosphere treatments.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

Exploration of Hamiltonian formulations of baroclinic hydrodynamics

A neutron star in a compact binary is expected to be well-approximated by a barotropic flow during the inspiral phase. During the merger phase, where tidal disruption and shock-heating occur, a baroclinic description is needed instead. In the barotropic case, a Hamiltonian formulation potentially offers unique benefits for numerical relativity simulations of the inspiral phase, including highly accurate conservation of circulation and superconvergence of the fluid variables, and is actively being explored. In this work, we investigate the viability of a Hamiltonian formulation in the baroclinic case. At odds with the barotropic case, this formulation is non-conservative, yet it can be treated well with approximate Riemann solver algorithms since the non-conservative terms vanish across genuinely nonlinear fields. Nonetheless, using numerical 1-dimensional shock tube tests we find that the weak solutions of the Hamiltonian system differ from the standard ones obtained by enforcing conservation of rest mass density, momentum density, and energy density across discontinuities. We also show that barotropic Hamiltonian formulations can admit shockwaves at fluid-vacuum interfaces, which may be related to the unstable behavior of stellar surfaces observed in past numerical tests. In light of the unphysical weak solutions, we expect that in future implementations of the Hamiltonian formulation of hydrodynamics in numerical relativity it will be necessary to use an explicitly barotropic formulation during the inspiral phase, and then switch to a robust baroclinic formulation prior to merger.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Consistent perturbative modeling of pseudo-Newtonian core-collapse supernova simulations

We write down and apply the linearized fluid and gravitational equations consistent with pseudo-Newtonian simulations, whereby Newtonian hydrodynamics is used with a pseudo-Newtonian monopole and standard Newtonian gravity for higher multipoles. We thereby eliminate the need to use mode function matching to identify the active non-radial modes in pseudo-Newtonian core-collapse supernova simulations, in favor of the less complex and less costly mode frequency matching method. In doing so, we are able to measure appropriate boundary conditions for a mode calculation.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

Multimessenger Asteroseismology of Core-Collapse Supernovae

We investigate correlated gravitational wave and neutrino signals from rotating core-collapse supernovae with simulations. Using an improved mode identification procedure based on mode function matching, we show that a linear quadrupolar mode of the core produces a dual imprint on gravitational waves and neutrinos in the early post-bounce phase of the supernova. The angular harmonics of the neutrino emission are consistent with the mode energy around the neutrinospheres, which points to a mechanism for the imprint on neutrinos. Thus, neutrinos carry information about the mode amplitude in the outer region of the core, whereas gravitational waves probe deeper in. We also find that the best-fit mode function has a frequency bounded above by $\sim 420$ Hz, and yet the mode's frequency in our simulations is $\sim 15\%$ higher, due to the use of Newtonian hydrodynamics and a widely used pseudo-Newtonian gravity approximation. This overestimation is particularly important for the analysis of gravitational wave detectability and asteroseismology, pointing to limitations of pseudo-Newtonian approaches for these purposes, possibly even resulting in excitation of incorrect modes. In addition, mode frequency matching (as opposed to mode function matching) could be resulting in mode misidentification in recent work. Lastly, we evaluate the prospects of a multimessenger detection of the mode using current technology. The detection of the imprint on neutrinos is most challenging, with a maximum detection distance of $\sim\!1$ kpc using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The maximum distance for detecting the complementary gravitational wave imprint is $\sim\!5$ kpc using Advanced LIGO at design sensitivity.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2018

Turbulence, Gravity, and Multimessenger Asteroseismology

Part IA: We present numerical measurements of relativistic scaling relations in $(2+1)$-dimensional conformal fluid turbulence, which perform favourably over their non-relativistic versions. As seen with incompressible turbulence in past studies, we find that the energy spectrum exhibits $k^{-2}$ scaling rather than the Kolmogorov/Kraichnan expectation of $k^{-5/3}$. Part IB: We compute the fractal dimension $D$ of a turbulent anti-deSitter black brane reconstructed from boundary fluid data using the fluid-gravity duality. Our value of $D=2.584(1)$ is consistent with the upper bound $D\leq 3$, resolving a recent claim that $D=3+1/3$. We describe how to covariantly define the fractal dimension of spatial sections of the horizon, and we speculate on assigning a `bootstrapped' value to the entire horizon. Part II: We report progress implementing a fluid code with post-Newtonian (PN) gravity in spherical symmetry. The PN formalism couples a fluid, its self-gravity, and a black hole via elliptic equations. This eliminates radiative modes, allowing larger time steps, which is helpful for studying systems with very long time scales, eg. tidal disruption events. Part III: Asteroseismology of rotating core-collapse supernovae is possible with a multimessenger strategy. We show an $l=2$, $m=0$, $n\gtrsim 2$, $f\lesssim 280$ Hz mode of the core is responsible for emission in gravitational waves and neutrinos. The angular harmonics of the neutrino emission is consistent with the mode energy around the neutrinospheres, where $r\sim 70$ km. Thus, neutrinos carry information about the mode in the outer region of the core, whereas gravitational waves probe the deep inner core $r \lesssim 30$ km.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2017

On the fractal dimension of turbulent black holes

We present measurements of the fractal dimension of a turbulent asymptotically anti-deSitter black brane reconstructed from simulated boundary fluid data at the perfect fluid order using the fluid-gravity duality. We argue that the boundary fluid energy spectrum scaling as $E(k)\sim k^{-2}$ is a more natural setting for the fluid-gravity duality than the Kraichnan-Kolmogorov scaling of $E(k) \sim k^{-5/3}$, but we obtain fractal dimensions $D$ for spatial sections of the horizon $H\capΣ$ in both cases: $D=2.584(1)$ and $D=2.645(4)$, respectively. These results are consistent with the upper bound of $D=3$, thereby resolving the tension with the recent claim in Adams, Chesler, Liu (2014) that $D=3+1/3$. We offer a critical examination of the calculation which led to their result, and show that their proposed definition of fractal dimension performs poorly as a fractal dimension estimator on $1$-dimensional curves with known fractal dimension. Finally, we describe how to define and in principle calculate the fractal dimension of spatial sections of the horizon $H\cap Σ$ in a covariant manner, and we speculate on assigning a `bootstrapped' value of fractal dimension to the entire horizon $H$ when it is in a statistically quasi-steady turbulent state.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Numerical Measurements of Scaling Relations in Two-Dimensional Conformal Fluid Turbulence

We present measurements of relativistic scaling relations in $(2+1)$-dimensional conformal fluid turbulence from direct numerical simulations, in the weakly compressible regime. These relations were analytically derived previously in Westernacher-Schneider, Lehner, Oz (2015) for a relativistic fluid; this work is a continuation of that study, providing further analytical insights together with numerical experiments to test the scaling relations and extract other important features characterizing the turbulent behavior. We first explicitly demonstrate that the non-relativistic limit of these scaling relations reduce to known results from the statistical theory of incompressible Navier-Stokes turbulence. In simulations of the inverse-cascade range, we find the relevant relativistic scaling relation is satisfied to a high degree of accuracy. We observe that the non-relativistic versions of this scaling relation underperform the relativistic one in both an absolute and relative sense, with a progressive degradation as the rms Mach number increases from $0.14$ to $0.19$. In the direct-cascade range, the two relevant relativistic scaling relations are satisfied with a lower degree of accuracy in a simulation with rms Mach number $0.11$. We elucidate the poorer agreement with further simulations of an incompressible Navier-Stokes fluid. Finally, as has been observed in the incompressible Navier-Stokes case, we show that the energy spectrum in the inverse-cascade of the conformal fluid exhibits $k^{-2}$ scaling rather than the Kolmogorov/Kraichnan expectation of $k^{-5/3}$, and that it is not necessarily associated with compressive effects. We comment on the implications for a recent calculation of the fractal dimension of a turbulent $(3+1)$-dimensional AdS black brane.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Scaling Relations in Two-Dimensional Relativistic Hydrodynamic Turbulence

We derive exact scaling relations for two-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic turbulence in the inertial range of scales. We consider both the energy cascade towards large scales and the enstrophy cascade towards small scales. We illustrate these relations by numerical simulations of turbulent weakly compressible flows. Intriguingly, the fluid-gravity correspondence implies that the gravitational field in spacetimes with anti-de Sitter asymptotics should exhibit similar scaling relations.

hep-th↗