Charging and Electromagnetic Radiation during the Inspiral of a Black Hole–Neutron Star Binary

Abstract

Because mergers of black hole–neutron star (BH–NS) binaries are widely argued to produce both gravitational and electromagnetic waves, these binaries are among the most attractive systems in the era of multi-messenger astronomy. In this paper we explore the charging processes of a moving BH in two types of charged surroundings and propose a new charging scenario differing from the elegant mechanism of Wald. During the inspiral of such a binary, the NS is strongly magnetized and the BH is moving inward. By considering this moving BH charging scenario, we find that the BH will increasingly accumulate enough net charge to light up the binary system at the inspiral stage. This charging process is universal no matter whether the BH spins or not. We show that our BH charging scenario can physically explain the BH’s unipolar inductor mechanism in a BH–NS binary system. We calculate electromagnetic emission luminosities due to various energy dissipation mechanisms and find that the electric dipole radiation of the BH makes a dominant contribution to electromagnetic emission at the final stage of inspiral if the BH spins slowly.