Rotating Neutron Star Migrations as a Standardized Test for 3+1 Numerical Relativity
Abstract
When simulating dynamically unstable neutron stars, truncation errors can introduce perturbations that drive the stellar configuration either toward gravitational collapse into a black hole or toward migration to a dynamically stable, lower-density configuration. This mechanism has become a standard benchmark for validating general-relativistic hydrodynamics codes in the case of spherically symmetric neutron-star models. In this work, we extend the analysis to the more general case of uniformly rotating neutron stars evolved in three spatial dimensions. We investigate these transitions using two equations of state: a cold polytrope and a hybrid prescription, which allow us to distinguish the barotropic response from the effects of shock-generated thermal pressure. We find that the migrated remnant remains close to uniform rotation after the transition, and we trace its quasi-radial pulsations through complementary diagnostics involving the central density, the rotation profile, and the axisymmetric gravitational-wave channel. We investigate the properties of these transitions and propose a standardized test for validating numerical-relativity codes by requiring the migration behavior to be consistent with the dynamics reported here.
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BibTeX
@misc{petit2026rotating,
title = {{Rotating Neutron Star Migrations as a Standardized Test for 3+1 Numerical Relativity}},
author = {Óscar H. Petit and José A. Font and Nikolaos Stergioulas},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.22080},
eprint = {2609.22080},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22080},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Rotating Neutron Star Migrations as a Standardized Test for 3+1 Numerical Relativity
AU - Óscar H. Petit
AU - José A. Font
AU - Nikolaos Stergioulas
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.22080
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22080
AB - When simulating dynamically unstable neutron stars, truncation errors can introduce perturbations that drive the stellar configuration either toward gravitational collapse into a black hole or toward migration to a dynamically stable, lower-density configuration. This mechanism has become a standard benchmark for validating general-relativistic hydrodynamics codes in the case of spherically symmetric neutron-star models. In this work, we extend the analysis to the more general case of uniformly rotating neutron stars evolved in three spatial dimensions. We investigate these transitions using two equations of state: a cold polytrope and a hybrid prescription, which allow us to distinguish the barotropic response from the effects of shock-generated thermal pressure. We find that the migrated remnant remains close to uniform rotation after the transition, and we trace its quasi-radial pulsations through complementary diagnostics involving the central density, the rotation profile, and the axisymmetric gravitational-wave channel. We investigate the properties of these transitions and propose a standardized test for validating numerical-relativity codes by requiring the migration behavior to be consistent with the dynamics reported here.
ER -