Collaborative Research: Loud, Bright, and Hot Binary Mergers

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Observing highly energetic astrophysical sources through fundamentally different radiation channels will be crucial in order to better understand some of the most intriguing, even exotic, objects and events in our universe. Included among these are compact binary objects, composed of black holes and neutron stars, as well as gamma ray bursts and related phenomena. Such objects are powerful engines for the production of gravitational, electromagnetic and neutrino radiation. Many research groups as well as observatories and experiments (both planned and already in operation), are engaged in attempting to observe, interpret and understand these emissions. Their overall understanding will be enhanced and furthered as theoretical insight and predictions are used to aid in their detection and in testing fundamental theories and phenomena. Our purpose here is to systematically consider non-vacuum compact binary systems and to do so with sufficient fidelity to obtain their emissions in gravitational and electromagnetic waves. We will do so by incorporating realistic equations of state, electromagnetic interactions and cooling effects. In particular, our approach is to tie ever more tightly together our theoretical understanding of the possible components and sources of multi-messenger astrophysics. We will build our efforts on a strong computational foundation, namely a robust implementation of the equations of general relativistic, resistive magnetohydrodynamics with adaptive mesh refinement. This research is of broad interest and naturally combines expertise and know-how that reaches beyond physicists to astrophysicists and mathematicians. It will advance our understanding of some of the most intriguing processes in the universe, and will provide valuable candidate waveforms for gravitational wave observatories (e.g. LIGO). Our participation in multinational efforts to compare waveforms and approaches will be especially valuable to the gravitational wave and astrophysical communities. The activities described here will help further undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral research and training, including a number of underrepresented individuals. Also, this work uses the HAD infrastructure and thus helps support broadly useful, publicly released, software. Additionally, this research involves some of the most exotic objects in our universe that captures the imagination of the general public.