Neutrino flavor instabilities in a binary neutron star merger remnant: Roles of a long-lived hypermassive neutron star

Understanding the postmerger evolution of a binary neutron star merger (BNSM) requires accurate modeling of neutrino transport and microphysics including neutrino flavor conversions. Many previous studies have suggested that fast flavor instability (FFI) and collisional flavor instability (CFI) pervade inner regions of the BNSM remnant, and they could impact on fluid dynamics and r-process nucleosynthesis. In this work, we reexamine prospects of the occurrences of FFI and CFI using Boltzmann neutrino transport, assuming a frozen fluid background obtained from a numerical relativity simulation of BNSM. We pay special attention to a case involving a long-lived ($>1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{s}$) hypermassive neutron star (HMNS). Apart from confirming the claim that these flavor instabilities can occur in BNSM remnants, some new insights are revealed. We identify multiple mechanisms responsible for generating electron-neutrino lepton number (ELN) angular crossings corresponding to a key indicator of FFI onset, which differ notably from those in black hole (BH) accretion disk systems. We argue that the appearance of positive chemical potential of electron-type neutrinos plays important roles in generating ELN angular crossings. For CFI, their growth rates are generally lower than FFI, but they can persistently occur in most of the accretion disk up to $\ensuremath{\sim}1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{s}$. We also find that neglecting contributions of heavy-leptonic neutrinos results in overestimating the growth rate and area of unstable regions of CFI. Our result suggests that FFI (CFI) tends to occur transiently (persistently) and locally (widespread in the disk), and FFI is more sensitive to the central compact object (HMNS or BH) than CFI, though more self-consistent simulations that incorporate the effects of flavor conversions are needed to confirm these claims.

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Publication Details

Journal
Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
Published
2025-08-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/kf8q-d67t
Citations
5
Primary Topic
Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
5.77

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article

Neutrino flavor instabilities in a binary neutron star merger remnant: Roles of a long-lived hypermassive neutron star

Sho Fujibayashi, Kohsuke Sumiyoshi, Masaru Shibata, Yuichiro Sekiguchi et al.
5 citations
Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
5.77
article

Neutrino flavor instabilities in a binary neutron star merger remnant: Roles of a long-lived hypermassive neutron star

Sho Fujibayashi, Kohsuke Sumiyoshi, Masaru Shibata, Yuichiro Sekiguchi, Hiroki Nagakura
article en
5 citations

Abstract

Understanding the postmerger evolution of a binary neutron star merger (BNSM) requires accurate modeling of neutrino transport and microphysics including neutrino flavor conversions. Many previous studies have suggested that fast flavor instability (FFI) and collisional flavor instability (CFI) pervade inner regions of the BNSM remnant, and they could impact on fluid dynamics and r-process nucleosynthesis. In this work, we reexamine prospects of the occurrences of FFI and CFI using Boltzmann neutrino transport, assuming a frozen fluid background obtained from a numerical relativity simulation of BNSM. We pay special attention to a case involving a long-lived ($>1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{s}$) hypermassive neutron star (HMNS). Apart from confirming the claim that these flavor instabilities can occur in BNSM remnants, some new insights are revealed. We identify multiple mechanisms responsible for generating electron-neutrino lepton number (ELN) angular crossings corresponding to a key indicator of FFI onset, which differ notably from those in black hole (BH) accretion disk systems. We argue that the appearance of positive chemical potential of electron-type neutrinos plays important roles in generating ELN angular crossings. For CFI, their growth rates are generally lower than FFI, but they can persistently occur in most of the accretion disk up to $\ensuremath{\sim}1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{s}$. We also find that neglecting contributions of heavy-leptonic neutrinos results in overestimating the growth rate and area of unstable regions of CFI. Our result suggests that FFI (CFI) tends to occur transiently (persistently) and locally (widespread in the disk), and FFI is more sensitive to the central compact object (HMNS or BH) than CFI, though more self-consistent simulations that incorporate the effects of flavor conversions are needed to confirm these claims.

Physical review. D/Physical review. D.Vol. 112(4)
Toho University (JP), Tohoku University (JP), Kyoto University (JP), Instituto de Física Teórica (ES), National Institute of Technology, Numazu College (JP), Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (DE), National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (JP), Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (JP)
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 4%
Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
5.77
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