Metastable hypermassive hybrid stars as neutron-star merger remnants

Abstract

Hypermassive hybrid stars (HMHS) are extreme astrophysical objects that could be produced in the merger of a binary system of compact stars. In contrast to their purely hadronic counterparts, hypermassive neutron stars (HMNS), these highly differentially rotating objects contain deconfined strange quark matter in their slowly rotating inner region. HMHS and HMNS are both mestastable configurations and can survive only shortly after the merger before collapsing to rotating black holes. The appearance of the phase transition from hadronic to quark matter in the interior region of the HMHS and its conjunction with the emitted GW will be addressed in this article by focussing on a specific case study of the delayed phase-transition scenario that takes place during the post-merger evolution of the remnant. The complicated dynamics of the collapse from the HMNS to the more compact HMHS will be analysed in detail. In particular, we will show that the interplay between the spatial density/temperature distributions and the rotational profiles in the interior of the wobbling HMHS after the collapse generates a high-temperature shell within the hadron-quark mixed phase region of the remnant.