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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Mergers of magnetized neutron stars with spinning black holes: disruption, accretion, and fallback
Sarvnipun Chawla1, Matthew Anderson, Michael Besselman
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-4001, USA.
Abstract:
We investigate the merger of a neutron star in orbit about a spinning black hole in full general relativity with a mass ratio of 5:1, allowing the star to have an initial magnetization of 10(12) G. We present the resulting gravitational waveform and analyze the fallback accretion as the star is disrupted. We see no significant dynamical effects in the simulations or changes in the gravitational waveform resulting from the initial magnetization. We find that only a negligible amount of matter becomes unbound; 99% of the neutron star material has a fallback time of 10 seconds or shorter to reach the region of the central engine and that 99.99% of the star will interact with the central disk and black hole within 3 hours.
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