Springer Theses

Recognizing Outstanding Ph.D. Research

Enping Zhou

Studying Compact
Star Equation of
States with General
Relativistic Initial
Data Approach
Springer Theses

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Enping Zhou

Studying Compact Star

Equation of States
with General Relativistic
Initial Data Approach
Doctoral Thesis accepted by
Peking University, Beijing, China

123
Author Supervisors
Dr. Enping Zhou Prof. Renxin Xu
Max-Planck Institute Kavli Institute for Astronomy
for Gravitational Physics and Astrophysics, Department of Astronomy
(Albert-Einstein Institute) State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Science
Potsdam, Germany and Technology and School of Physics
Peking University
Beijing, China

Prof. Luciano Rezzolla

Institute for Theoretical Physics
Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies
Frankfurt, Germany

ISSN 2190-5053 ISSN 2190-5061 (electronic)

Springer Theses
ISBN 978-981-15-4150-6 ISBN 978-981-15-4151-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4151-3
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Supervisor’s Foreword

The ultimate target of physics study is to understand the fundamental units of matter
and the interaction between them. A standard model of particle physics has been
established, thanks to the great efforts of many physicists in the twentieth century.
In the standard model, basic Fermions make up the matter, whereas gauge Bosons
mediate the fundamental interactions between the Fermions. There are four inter-
actions currently known, including strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational
ones. Among them, gravity and strong force are more subtle to deal with although
both of them are described in delicate framework theoretical, i.e., general relativity
(GR) for gravity and quantum chromodynamics (QCD) for strong one. The diffi-
culty in dealing with GR arises from the non-linearity of the field equation, but for
QCD the non-perturbative property at low energy level.
In this sense, compact star (or pulsar in observations) is a perfect laboratory for
us to study both the strong and gravitational interactions. On one hand, as the
densest object in the Universe, the property and internal structure of compact stars
is tightly related to low temperature/high chemical potential QCD. Certainly, fig-
uring out the equation of state of such dense object will greatly enrich our
knowledge about strong interaction. On the other hand, being such a massive and
compact object, they provide a way for us to test GR in strong field regime and they
themselves could be gravitational wave sources as well. The accurate periodic
signal from pulsars could also help us detect low-frequency gravitational waves
(nHz). Additionally, compact star is the key for one to understand different mani-
festations of high energy phenomena in astrophysics. This is the reason why any
science related to pulsar is fascinating for my research group at Peking University.
In particular, me, my students, and colleagues are interested in constraining the
equation of state of pulsars with all possible observational phenomenon.
The study of compact degenerate Fermion stars dates back to early twentieth
century. In 1926, Fowler has pointed out degenerate pressure of electrons might be
the support against gravity for white dwarfs. He also realized that stars with density
as high as [1014 gcm 3 could exist. Later Chandrasekhar realized that when
considering relativistic energy–momentum relation, there would be a mass limit

v
vi Supervisor’s Foreword

beyond which degenerate pressure of electrons can no longer support the star,
which is now so-called Chandrasekhar limit of white dwarfs. With such back-
grounds, Lev Landau began to consider what happens to stars beyond this limit,
inevitably shrinking to a “gigantic nuclei”. He believes that in the core of such stars,
there will be pathological region where electron and proton become particle-like
with charge neutrality. With the discovery of neutron by Chadwick later on,
Landau’s speculation of “gigantic nuclei” then evolved into the very original idea of
“neutron star”, which then became a hot topic in astrophysics and nuclear physics.
The original idea of neutron star is created when the strong interaction is poorly
understood, let alone the quark model. As our knowledge about strong interaction
gets richer, a conjecture that three flavor quark matter is the absolute stable state of
dense matter has thus been suggested. Based on the conjecture, strange star (which
is composed of deconfined or confined u; d; s quarks) model has been suggested.
Most of the colleagues in my group are interested in testing strange star model or
understanding puzzling observations in such a model, but Enping showed great
interest in general relativity when he just started his Ph.D. study. Therefore, he
chose to focus his Ph.D. study on the topic of distinguishing between strange and
neutron stars with numerical relativity calculations and to seek for possible
observational tests in the gravitational wave era.
A joint training program is approved for Enping to study this topic, starting from
2014 in the group of Prof. Luciano Rezzolla. The long-term goal of his research is
to obtain accurate gravitational waveform of strange stars, either in binary merger or
from fast rotating single source, and to determine the ejecta properties of binary
strange star merger so as to infer the electromagnetic counterpart behavior.
Nevertheless, to perform numerical relativity evolution, he had to first obtain initial
data of strange stars. Enping spent most of the time in Frankfurt working on
constructing initial data of strange stars. By the time of October 2017, when the first
multimessenger observation of a binary neutron star merger (GW170817,
GRB170817A, and AT2017gfo) is announced, he has obtained a few results by
initial data study. For instance, tidal deformability of strange star models has been
explored and compared with the constraint from GW170817. Configurations of
uniformly or differentially rotating strange stars are also studied and compared with
the case of conventional neutron stars to indicate possible differences in observa-
tion. Such studies are the main content of his Ph.D. thesis.
Since the detection of GW170817, more binary merger events involving neutron
stars have already been detected as the sensitivity is increased in the new opera-
tional runs of LIGO and VIRGO. In the future, more constraints on the equation of
state of compact star will be obtained as more facilities are going to join the
multimessenger astronomical observation. At the same time, Enping has also begun
to tackle the problem of evolving strange stars in numerical relativity. Hopefully, in
Supervisor’s Foreword vii

the near future, we could justify the possibility of strange stars, as well as con-
straining the equation of states in the strange star scenario. It will be good news if
we could finally know the inner structure of neutron star in this multimessenger era,
with the knowledge improvement of both gravitational and strong forces.

Beijing, China Prof. Renxin Xu

January 2020
Preface

On September 14, 2015, after the efforts of several decades, a direct detection of
gravitational wave signal from a binary black hole system is finally achieved [3].
With this detection, another prediction of Einstein’s general relativity has proved
true and the theory itself has been tested in strong field regime. This detection has
opened a brand new window for human to observe the universe and announced the
start of gravitational wave astronomy era.
Throughout the history of man kinds, the level of civilization is always closely
related to the depth of the understanding about the universe. Motion of celestial
objects was recorded on oracle bones thousands of years ago and the annual plan of
agriculture has been fixed according to it by our ancestors. The position of moon
and stars allows captains to figure out the location of their ship and make inter-
continental sailing possible hundreds of years ago. Four hundred years ago, the
craters on the moon, the phase change of Venus as well as the motion of Jupiter
moons have been discovered by Galileo’s telescope, which eventually frees the
study of natural science from religions and pushed human beings into industrial
age. Now, the gravitational wave window has come to our aid to observe the
universe. This will undoubtedly impact the modern astronomy and physics.
Indeed, 2 years later, on August 17, 2017, advLIGO and VIRGO managed to
detect a gravitational wave signal from an inspiraling binary neutron star system,
GW170817 [4]. Unlike the binary black hole systems which are almost purely
manifestation of gravity, binary neutron star merger will result in much richer
observations due to the presence of matter. With the efforts of more than 70
observatories, the electromagnetic counterparts of this merger event have also been
detected [5], including a relatively dim short gamma ray burst and a kilonova. This
has announced the birth of multimessenger astronomy.

ix
x Preface

The detection of the binary neutron star merger event has significantly enriched
our knowledge about the central engine of short gamma ray bursts as well as the
origin of heavy elements in the Universe [1, 2]. To make the detection possible as
well as to interpret the observations, theoretical models for binary neutron star
merger events are essential. However, even the motion of two point masses (i.e.,
binary black hole systems) could not be solved analytically, needless to say for
binary neutron star system which is far more complicated. Especially when the two
neutron stars are close to each other or post to merger, the star might be signifi-
cantly deformed, neutrino emissions might be important due to the increase of the
temperature, and even strong interaction phase transition could take place.
Numerical relativity, which is to solve general relativistic hydrodynamics with
numerical methods, is thus essential in modeling binary mergers.
Due to the complicity in mathematics, numerics as well as in physics, the
numerical relativity method is still quite limited in many aspects. For instance, the
description of viscosity and heat conductivity is not properly implemented, which
could play a very important role during the merger. It’s also computationally
extremely expensive if we want to perform a long-term simulation with high res-
olution. As a consequence, the understanding of many post-merger behaviors, such
as the jet formation, is quite indirect. And due to the non-perturbative property of
strong interaction at low energy scale, the equation of state we should apply for the
fluid in the simulation is also with high uncertainty. Nevertheless, every challenge
is also an opportunity. Indeed, constraining the equation of state of dense matter,
with the aid of numerical relativity method, is also a hot topic in the multimessenger
astronomy era.
It’s worth noting that, apart from the conventional neutron star model, it has been
shown that other theoretical models such as strange quark star model could also
explain the observation of GW170817 as well as its electromagnetic counterparts.
However, quark stars possess a very large surface density (i.e., as large as several
times of nuclear saturation density), due to the self-bound nature by strong inter-
action. This discontinuity on the surface makes it quite difficult to directly perform
numerical simulations with such type of equation of state. In the past, binary quark
star mergers have been studied merely via smooth particle hydrodynamics which
could handle this sharp discontinuity. Hence, it’s not easy to fully explore the
possibility of quark star models as well as interpret the observations in the scheme of
quark stars. Considering this issue for quark star models, as well as the time con-
sumption of numerical relativity simulations, constructing quasi-equilibrium solu-
tions (or in another word, calculating initial data) still plays an important role in
understanding the merger observations, particularly the post-merger stage. In par-
ticular, I have constructed quasi-equilibrium models of uniformly rotating, differ-
entially rotating as well as triaxial rotating quark stars and compared the results with
the solutions of neutron stars to seek for possible way to distinguish between them.
This thesis will be organized as follows: in the first chapter, I will make a brief
introduction to numerical relativity methods, initial data calculation as well as
equation of state models; in the second chapter, I will introduce the calculation of
tidal deformability for compact stars and demonstrate how the observation could be
Preface xi

interpreted differently for neutron star and quark stars; in the third chapter, I will
introduce the calculation of critical mass for uniformly and differentially rotating
compact stars; in the fourth chapter, results of triaxially rotating compact stars will
be introduced; a conclusion will be given in the last chapter.

Potsdam, Germany Enping Zhou

June 2019

References

1. Eichler D, Livio M, Piran T, Schramm DN (1989) Nucleosynthesis, neutrinobursts and

gamma-rays from coalescing neutron stars. Nature 340:126–128
2. Narayan R, Paczynski B, Piran T (1992) Gamma-ray bursts as the death throesof massive
binary stars. Astrophys J Lett 395:L83–L86
3. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration (2016) Observation of grav-
itational waves from a binary black hole merger. Phys Rev Lett 116(6):061102
4. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and The Virgo Collaboration (2017) GW170817:
Observation of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral. Phys Rev Lett
119:161101
5. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration, Abbott BP, Abbott R, Abbott TD,
Acernese F, Ackley K, Adams C, Adams T, Addesso P et al (2017) Multi-messenger obser-
vations of a binary neutron star merger. Astrophys J Lett 848(2):L12. http://stacks.iop.org/
2041-8205/848/i=2/a=L12
Parts of this thesis have been published in the following journal articles:

[1] Two types of glitches in a solid quark star model, E. P. Zhou, J. G. Lu,
H. Tong, R. X. Xu, MNRAS 443 2705 (2014)
[2] Uniformly rotating, axisymmetric and triaxial quark stars in general
relativity, E. P. Zhou, A. Tsokaros, L. Rezzolla, R. X. Xu, K. Uryu, PRD 97
023013 (2018)
[3] Constraints on interquark interaction parameters with GW170817 in a binary
strange star scenario, E. P. Zhou, X. Zhou, A. Li, PRD 97 083015 (2018)
[4] Merging Strangeon Stars, X. Y. Lai, Y. W. Yu, E. P. Zhou, Y. Y. Li,
R. X. Xu, RAA 18 024 (2018)
[5] Causal propagation of signal in strangeon matter, J. G. Lu, E. P. Zhou,
X. Y. Lai, R. X. Xu, SCPMA 61 89511 (2018)
[6] Neutron Star Equation of State from the Quark Level in Light of GW170817,
Z. Y. Zhu, E. P. Zhou, A. Li, ApJ 862, 98 (2018)
[7] Strangeons constitute bulk strong matter: Test using GW 170817, X. Y. Lai,
E. P. Zhou, R. X. Xu, EPJA, 55, 60 (2019)
[8] To Constrain Neutron Star’s equation of state by GRB X-ray Plateau, S. Du,
E. P. Zhou, R. X. Xu, ApJ 886, 2 (2019)
[9] Constraint on the maximum mass of neutron stars using GW170817 event,
M. Shibata, E. P. Zhou, K. Kiuchi, S. Fujibayashi, PRD 100 023015 (2019)
[10] Differentially rotating strange star in general relativity, E. P. Zhou,
A. Tsokaros, K. Uryu, R. X. Xu, M. Shibata, PRD 100 043015 (2019)

xiii
Acknowledgements

I would like to sincerely thank the support of all the teachers, friends, and my
family during my study and writing this thesis.
Among them, Prof. Renxin Xu, who is my Ph.D. supervisor as well as my tutor
during my undergraduate years in Peking University, is the most important guide
for me, not only for training my academic abilities but also for impacting me with
his own behavior on how to become a fair and nice person. He encouraged me to
follow the topic which I’m more interested in and recommended me to study abroad
with scholarship during my Ph.D. Without him, I wouldn’t be able to get into the
field of numerical relativity.
I’m also extremely grateful for Prof. Dr. Luciano Rezzolla in University
Frankfurt, who always spares time with me to instruct me although he has quite a
large group and quite a lot of administrative stuffs to deal with as the head of the
institute. He also generously provided me the same study environment and inter-
national travel opportunities as the other students, although I was only a visiting
student. Even after I finished the visit and went back to Peking University, he still
supports me to have several short-term visits to Frankfurt as well as allowing me to
still use the supercomputer in the group. Without his help, I would not be able to get
familiar with this field so fast, nor would I be able to finish any projects mentioned
in this thesis.
In addition to them, Dr. Antonios Tsokaros who is one of the creators of
COCAL is essentially the closest teacher for me in Frankfurt. I was not even
familiar with Linux command lines when I first arrived in Frankfurt, and it’s him
that instructed me for any type of technical questions and eventually led me by hand
to the field of initial data calculation. We have kept in contact regularly even until
today and he is always willing to help me not only scientifically but also for daily
lives and career plans. Professor Zhoujian Cao and Prof. Runqiu Liu from Chinese
Academy of Science have also given me significant instructions in the field of
numerical relativity. Additionally, Prof. Masaru Shibata has kindly allowed me to
take some time for translating this thesis into English after I joined his division as a
Postdoc. I’m also grateful to him for making this book possible as well as for his
instructions which greatly improves my academic abilities in this field.

xv
xvi Acknowledgements

Apart from all the kind teachers, I should also thank my friends. Dr. Jiguang Lu,
with his great talent in physics and mathematics, always gave me inspirations in my
own research and reminded me to be humble. Dr. Lijing Shao, my academic elder
brother, is always ready to discuss questions with me and try to find solutions to the
problems which I encountered in daily life. All the Chinese and foreign friends that
I met during my visit to Frankfurt have also made both my researches and life more
joyful in Germany. Mentioning the visit to Germany, I surely should thank the
support of China Scholarship Council, who made my life there financially possible.
I should also mention that it’s my parents who have been offering the most
important support to me during my studies. Although they are not very well edu-
cated themselves due to the restrictions of their generation, they are quite
open-minded and supported me to pursue my own dream in astronomy since my
childhood. They always share the joy of success with me and encourage me when
there are difficulties ahead. In Chinese saying, people always use the analogy of
“frozen window” to describe the difficulties of studies. Nevertheless, with the
support of my parents, my “window” is much warmer and I’m finally able to reward
them with this thesis.
Last but not least, I have to thank Xiaojie Wu, my wife, who has patiently waited
for me for many years when we have to separate because of my study and who have
always tolerated me for the lack of romance. Her love, across all the distances
between Germany and China, through all the time since 2014, is always the most
important support and motivation for me to carry on.
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 History of Numerical Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 3+1 Decompositon of the Spacetime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 3+1 Decomposition of the Einstein Field Equations . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Initial Data Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 Hydrostatic Equilibrium for Initial Data Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.6 Equation of State of Compact Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.7 Numerical Code: COCAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.1 Calculation of Tidal Deformability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.2 K Constraint of GW170817 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2.3 Constraint on NS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 Constraint on Strangeon Star Model with GW170817 . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.1 Tidal Deformability of Strangeon Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.2 Test of Solid Strangeon Star Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4 Constraint on MIT Bag Model with GW170817 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.1 The EoS Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.2 Constraint on Strange Quark Mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4.3 Constraint on Beff and a4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4.4 Constraint on D Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

xvii
xviii Contents

3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 37

3.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 37
3.1.1 Fate of the Merger Remnant and Maximum
Mass of Compact Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 37
3.1.2 Constraints on NS EoS According to EM Counterparts
of GW170817 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 A More Consistent Constraint on NS MTOV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3 Uniformly Rotating Strange Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4.1 Rotation Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4.2 Critical Mass of Differentially Rotating Strange Stars . . . . 50
3.4.3 Critical Mass of Constant Angular Momentum
Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 54
3.4.4 Configuration Types of Differentially Rotating
Strange Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 56
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 60
4 Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.2 Constructing Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars with COCAL . . . . . . 65
4.3 Comparison with Triaxially Rotating NS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Appendix: Accuracy and Convergence Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 1
Introduction

In this chapter, a brief history of the development of numerical relativity method,

the 3+1 decompostion, initial data problem as well as equations of state of compact
stars will be introduced. For more detailed introductions, one can find, for example,
in [14, 26].

1.1 History of Numerical Relativity

Among four fundamental interactions, gravitational interaction is the one first studied
in details by human. Four centuries ago, Newton came up with his theory of gravity,
that matter attracts each other with a force proportional to their masses and inverse
separation squared. In 1915, Einstein submitted his paper on the theory of general
relativity, describing gravity as the curvature effect of the spacetime manifold with
the presence of energy and momentum being the source of this curvature. Newton’s
law of gravity then was included in general relativity as the approximation for weak
field limit, which is no longer valid for systems with strong gravity, such as binary
black hole or binary neutron star mergers. Applying general relativity, is essential in
understanding binary compact star mergers.
Although the most basic equation for general relativity, i.e., the Einstein equation
has a very simple tensorial form,

G μν = 8πTμν , (1.1)

to solve it is by no means easy. The first exact solution came up one year later in
1916 by Schwarzchild, in the most symmetric case (a static spherically symmetric
solution in vacuum). And with just a little bit less symmetry, i.e. going from spherical
symmetry to axial symmetry, the solution of Einstein’s field becomes way more

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 1

E. Zhou, Studying Compact Star Equation of States with General
Relativistic Initial Data Approach, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4151-3_1
2 1 Introduction

difficult. Almost half a century later, the exact solution for a static axisymmetric
vacuum spacetime was finally given by Kerr in 1963. And people couldn’t derive
this solution until another ten years later. The non-vacuum case yields even less
solutions. In 1939, Tolman, Oppenheimer and Volkoff derived the equation (hence
called TOV equation) for solving the structure of a static spherically symmetric star.
And for the general cases, this equation has no analytic solution and has to be solved
numerically.
In addition, most of those solutions obtained are static or stationary solutions,
which are not evolving with time. When it comes to binary compact star systems
which are highly dynamical, the solutions and the methods to obtain those solutions
can provide very little help. Since the mid-20th century, with the improvement of
the calculation speed of computers, to solve Einstein equation with computers has
become a possibility and research field for studying the dynamics of compact stars.
This is the topic of numerical relativity, to solve Einstein equation with computers.
General relativity is a great leap of our understanding of spacetime. The idea of
Galileo and Newton’s absolute time and space are replaced by a brand new model
based on a four dimensional space-time manifold. Nevertheless, this leap brings
inconvenience for numerical calculation. When we perform simulation to study the
evolution of a certain physical problem on computers, a common strategy is to refor-
mulate it into a typical Cauchy problem. For the case of Einstein’s field equation,
which in essence is a partial differential equation system, we need to split those
equations that contains second order derivative with respect to time (which are called
evolution equations) and those not (which are called constraint equations). After that,
we can solve for initial data on a spacelike hypersurface which satisfies the constraint
equations, and then we can evolve the data to future time with the evolution equations.
This procedure is called 3+1 decomposition.
In 1952, Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat proved the local existence and uniqueness of
the solutions of a 3+1 decomposed Einstein’s filed equation [10]. In 1962, Arnowitt,
Deser and Misner came up with way to decompose Einstein’s filed equation, which
was later improved by York and widely known as the ADM formalism [4, 40]. York
has also developed a way for calculating initial data [39]. Many attempts have been
done to perform numerical simulations with the ADM formalism, which turns out to
be successful only in very limited cases. The reason is that ADM formalism is not
very suitable for numerical simulations as this formalism is weakly hyperbolic and
therefore the numerical solutions are not guaranteed to be stable.
With this concern, Nakamura tried to fix this undesirable weak hyperbolicity
starting from the standard ADM formalism [23]. Later on, Shibata and Nakamura
improved the formalism based on a conformal decomposition formulation [28]. Sub-
sequently, Baumgarte and Shapiro proposed a new variable to have a slightly simpler
form compared with that derived by Shibata and Nakamura [6]. This is called the
BSSN formalism.
Although BSSN formalism improved the stability of numerical calculations, it still
doesn’t automatically result in a successful simulation by just simply applying the
formalism. Another crucial ingredient for those numerical relativity methods based
on spacetime foliation is the gauge choice, or in another word, how do you choose the
1.1 History of Numerical Relativity 3

spacetime coordinate structures during the evolution. It turns out many physically
intuitive choice of coordinates will not be so useful in numerical simulations and
may even cause the code to crash at some moment. A bad choice, for example,
might not be able to avoid the physical singularity and causes ‘NAN’ (not a number)
in numerical simulations or cause the actual resolution to decrease in the physical
relevant regions. Seeking for a good gauge condition has become a concern in the
first several years since BSSN formalism was proposed.
In 1999, Shibata and Uryu has made the first successful binary neutron star merger
simulation in 3D [27] with the BSSN formalism. However, in order to acquire a good
coordinate choice during the simulation, they chose to solve elliptic equations to
impose certain properties of the slicing which are known to be helpful for numerical
simulations. Solving elliptic equations are computationally more expensive than
other evolution equations which could be solved by simple time integration methods.
To solve elliptic equations, one usually have to iterate for one timestep for the result to
converge. Additionally, binary neutron star systems do not contain singularity during
most time of the simulations. Thus this gauge choice cannot be simply used by, for
example, binary black hole simulations. In 2003, Alcubierre et al. has proposed a
gauge choice which is called moving puncture method which could avoid singularity
during the simulation [1]. The gauge choice is described by time evolution of some
variables thus very easy to solve. They have made the first successful numerical
relativity simulation for single black hole with BSSN formalism and their gauge
choices.
Remarkable progresses have been made in the year of 2005. Pretorius et al. have
applied the so called generalized harmonic formalism and successfully performed
the numerical evolution of a binary black hole merger [25]. Later on, Baker et al. and
Campanelli et al. have also independently obtained successful simulation of binary
black hole merger with BSSN formalism [5, 11]. Compared with Alcubierre et al.
original attempt in 2003, the most important improvement is that they have applied
fourth order finite differencing scheme instead of second order, which improves the
accuracy. Moreover, they modified the original BSSN formalism with some vari-
able replacement such that it works better with the moving puncture method. Those
progresses has announced the success of numerical relativity with the spacetime
foliation.
Once a stable numerical relativity evolution is achieved, the accuracy of it has
become the new concern as an accurate gravitational wave template is what everyone
expects numerical relativity to give us, which is also quite essential for gravitational
wave detection as well as interpreting the observation. The accuracy of numerical rel-
ativity could be quantified be the so-called constraint violation. As mentioned before,
part of Einstein equations (4 out of 10) doesn’t contain second order time derivatives.
They are called constraint equations and should be satisfied during the simulation. In
principle, they should automatically be satisfied provided the initial data is satisfying
these equations. Nevertheless, due to the finite resolution and accuracy of numeri-
cal methods, these equations will not be strictly satisfied thus constraint violation is
4 1 Introduction

produced. In this sense BSSN formalism is not a very ideal method. For instance,
the characteristic propagation speed of Hamiltonian constraint violation is 0, which
means whatever violation created during the evolution will stay in the computational
domain and accumulate. The so-called Z4 formalism is proposed to fix this problem,
together with its conformal versions such as CCZ4 and Z4c [2, 8, 9, 15, 16]. Such
formalisms have been applied by various groups for simulating binary compact star
mergers and turns out to be very successful and more accurate.
Compared with binary black holes, which might be numerically more difficult
to simulate due to the presence of singularities, binary neutron star systems contain
more complicated physical processes due to the presence of matter. Viscosity of
the fluid and effect of finite temperature, which do not exist for binary black hole
systems, will play a very important role in binary neutron star mergers instead, in
affecting the amount and the velocity of the ejecta. The merger remnant is also quite
hot and a sufficient neutrino emitter which will affect the electron fraction of the
ejecta. All those properties, the amount, velocity and electron fraction of the ejecta
are closely related the electromagnetic counterparts of the merger event and thus very
important if we can figure it out with numerical relativity simulations. At the same
time, neutron stars usually possess a strong magnetic field which would be further
enhanced by the differentially rotating post-merger remnant. This strong magnetic
is a crucial element in understanding the central engine of short gamma ray bursts.
Consequently, adding more ingredients, such as magnetohydrodynamics, neutrinos,
viscosity as well as finite temperature equation of state, into the numerical relativity
recipe is very important and has become the goal of numerical relativity research in
the recent years.

1.2 3+1 Decompositon of the Spacetime

A globally hyperbolic spacetime can be foliated into a set of spacelike hypersur-

faces (Cauchy surfaces) t parameterized by global function t. Let n μ be the future
directing normal vector, hence n μ n μ = −1. Then, with the spacetime metric gμν , a
projection tensor can be induced

γμν = gμν + n μ n ν
(1.2)
γ μν = g μν + n μ n ν .

This tensor works as a projection tensor for mapping a spacetime tensor to a purely
spatial tensor on the spacelike hypersurface. The three dimensional spatial part of
this projection tensor γ i j , works as the metric tensor on the hypersurface and could
be used to lower and raise indices for tensors on the hypersurface.
1.2 3+1 Decompositon of the Spacetime 5

It’s worth noting that, the direction of the time axis ((∂/∂t)μ ) is not necessarily
parallel to the norm vector of the hypersurface. Let t μ be a timelike vector field in the
spacetime which is tangent to the time axis, and t μ ∇μ t = 1. Then we can decompose
it into two components as (see the illustration in Fig. 1.1)

α := −t μ n μ , β μ := t ν γνμ , (1.3)

in which we have the so called lapse function α that describes the proper distance
between two neighboring hypersurfaces a timelike normal vector, i.e., the speed that
time elapses; and the purely spatial shift vector β μ = (0, β i )1 which represents the
difference between the time axis and the normal vector of the hypersurface.
With this setup, the line element can always be written in the following form:

ds 2 = −(α2 − β i βi )dt 2 + 2βi d x i dt + γi j d x i d x j . (1.4)

Using these elements, the spacetime metric components can be written as

 2 
−α + β k βk β j
gμν = , (1.5)
βi γi j

and  
βj
μν − α12
g = βi
α2
βi β j . (1.6)
α2
γi j − α2

From the above expression it could also be found that the determinant of the spacetime
metric g := |gμν | is equal to −α2 γ where γ is the determinant of the spatial metric
γi j .
With this foliation, it’s also possible to define the three dimensional covariant
derivative operator as
Dν := γνμ ∇μ = (δνμ + n μ n ν )∇μ . (1.7)

Just as ∇μ is compatible with the four dimensional spacetime metric gμν , it can be
proven that Dν is also compatible with the three dimensional spatial metric γμν as

Dσ γαβ = γσρ γαμ γβν ∇ρ (gμν + n μ n ν ) = γσρ γαμ γβν (n μ ∇ρ n ν + n ν ∇ρ n μ ) = 0, (1.8)

where we have applied the metric compatibility condition ∇ρ gμν = 0 and the fact
that n μ is the normal vector such that n μ γαμ = 0. This covariant derivative operator
is very important in splitting the Einstein field equations as can be found the in the
section below.

1 For the indices of a tensor, the notation in this thesis is that Greek letters are for the four dimensional

time and space indices (for example, μ vary from 0 to 3) and the Latin letters are for three dimensional
spatial indices (for example i vary from 1 to 3).
6 1 Introduction

Fig. 1.1 An illustration of the 3+1 foliation of the spacetime manifold. t and t+dt are two
neighboring spacelike hypersurfaces specified by constant time coordinate t and t + dt, respectively.
The 4-vector t represents the direction of time, which could be decomposed into two parts, the fully
spatial part β and the timelike part αn. The scalar function α describes the rate at which time
elapses, and is called lapse function. The vector field β describes the relative shift of the spatial
coordinate between two neighboring hypersurfaces, thus called shift vector

1.3 3+1 Decomposition of the Einstein Field Equations

The nature of Einstein field equations is a tensorial equation, with the preparation
in the previous section, we can also try to decompose Einstein equations with the
projection tensors given. Here in this introduction I will only briefly go through the
most basic way of the decomposition, i.e., the ADM formalism. It’s worth noting that
the tensors involved in Einstein equations, namely the Riemann tensor, metric tensor
and energy momentum tensor, are rank 2 tensors. As a consequence, the projection
tensors have to be applied twice for decomposing the equations. Considering this,
there are 3 ways in total to do the projections: purely spatial projection onto the
spacelike hypersurface, purely timelike projection to the direction perpendicular to
the hypersurface, and a mixed projection of the two mentioned above.
By projecting Einstein equation to the spacetimelike hypersurface we can obtain:

∂t K i j = −Di D j α + β k ∂k K i j + K ik ∂ j β k + K k j ∂i β k (1.9)
(3)
+ α( Ri j + K K i j − 2K ik K kj ) + 4πα[γi j (S − E) − 2Si j ],
1.3 3+1 Decomposition of the Einstein Field Equations 7

in which D is the 3 dimensional covariant derivative operator compatible with the

metric on the hypersurface, (3) Ri j is the Ricci tensor on the hypersurface and K i j is
the extrinsic curvature of the hypersurface defined as

1
Ki j = − (∂t − Lβ )γi j . (1.10)
2α
It’s worth noting that extrinsic curvature contains first order time derivative of
the metric tensor and Eq. (1.9) contains the first order time derivative of extrinsic
curvature. According to the symmetry of K i j , Eqs. (1.9) and (1.10) each has 6 com-
ponents. Therefore, Eqs. (1.9) and (1.10) together represent the 6 components in
Einstein equation which contain second order time derivatives. By introducing K i j
as a variable for the evolution system, six differential equations with second order
time derivative is now re-written as twelve differential equations with first order time
derivative, hence much more straight forward for time evolution. Those twelve equa-
tions (Eqs. 1.9 and 1.10) are called evolution equations. Like in classic mechanics,
given initial position and velocity, the motion of a particle could then be predicted.
In numerical relativity, given the initial metric and its first order time derivative (i.e.,
the metric tensor and extrinsic curvature of the hypersurface), Eqs. (1.9) and (1.10)
could then be used to evolve them.
Nevertheless, initial metric and curvature used for the evolution shouldn’t be
given arbitrarily. Some constraints, which are encoded in the other 4 components
of Einstein equation without second order time derivatives, must be satisfied. Those
are called constraint equations which could be obtained by the other projections of
Einstein equation. By a mixed projection, we can obtain

D j (K i j − γ i j K ) = 8πS i . (1.11)

This equation has 3 components and is called the momentum constraint.

The projection purely to the direction perpendicular to hypersurface is
(3)
R + K 2 − K i j K i j = 16π E. (1.12)

This is called the Hamiltonian constraint. Equations (1.11) and (1.12) are the con-
straints that the metric and extrinsic curvature have to satisfy. Together with the
evolution equations (Eqs. 1.9 and 1.10), they represent all the components in Ein-
stein equation. There is one thing worth mentioning here: the space-like hypersur-
face could be totally described by 12 independent variables (6 for metric and 6 for
extrinsic curvature) which needs to satisfy 4 constraint equations. Hence, there are
12 − 4 = 8 degrees of freedom, 4 out of which come from the choice of coordinates
t, x, y, z. The remaining 4 degrees of freedom accounts for the 2 polarization modes
of gravitational wave.
In addition, there are hydrodynamic quantities on the right hand side of those
equations, which are also obtained from projection of energy momentum tensor Tαβ :
8 1 Introduction

Sαβ = γ μα γ νβ Tμν
Sα = −γ μα n ν Tμν
(1.13)
S = S μμ
E = n μ n ν Tμν ,

in which Sα and E correponds to the momentum and energy density of the fluid
as observed by an observer with n as the four velocity. This is also the reason why
Eqs. (1.11) and (1.12) are called momentum constraint and Hamiltonian constraint,
respectively.

1.4 Initial Data Problem

The initial data problem of numerical relativity is to choose the coordinates for a initial
spacelike hypersurface and determine the constraint-satisfying metric and extrinsic
curvature of it according to the astrophysical problem that one is interested in (for
example, rotating compact star or binary compact star systems). By the discussion in
the previous section, it could be seen that it’s not enough to obtain all the 12 variables
needed by only solving 4 constraint equations.
With more detailed analysis it could be seen, Hamiltonian constraint is one con-
straint on γi j whereas momentum constraint are 3 constraints for K i j . Two polar-
ization modes of gravitational wave are 2 constraints for both γi j and K i j . As a
consequence, the gauge condition (i.e. the choice of the coordinates or in another
word, the way to foliate the initial hypersurface) will make 3 constraints for γi j and
one for K i j .
In practice, we usually have to apply some particular assumptions when foliating
the spacetime to obtain the initial hypersurface by considering the symmetry of the
physical process that we are interested in to reduce the degrees of freedom in γi j
and K i j , hence having enough constraint equations to solve the initial data problem.
One widely used assumption is the so-called conformally flat approximation, which
treats the metric on the initial hypersurface as a conformal transformation of a flat
3-metric:
γi j = ψ 4 δi j . (1.14)

With this assumption, the line element in the spacetime becomes

ds 2 = −α2 dt 2 + ψ 4 δi j (d x i + β i dt)(d x j + β j dt), (1.15)

which is then fully determined by 5 variables: α,β i and ψ the conform factor.
The conformally flat approximation is applied in many formalisms to calculate ini-
tial data, including one called IWM formulation (Isenberg-Wilson-Mathews (IWM)
1.4 Initial Data Problem 9

formulation) [18, 19, 36] which we will further introduce below.2 In such a form, one
evolution equation has to be used together with 4 constraint equations to determine
the 5 variables (α,β i and ψ), which is

1
(G μν − 8πTμν )(γ αβ + n α n β ) = 0. (1.16)
2
Nevertheless, as this additional equation is a component of evolution equations,
it contains second order time derivative (i.e. time derivative of extrinsic curvature).
As a result, a slicing condition K = 0 = ∂t K has to be imposed to drop the terms
with time derivative. By doing this, this equation together with 4 constraint equations
could be written as

ψ5
∇2ψ = − Ai j Ai j − 2πψ 5 E, (1.17)
8
1 ψ6
∇ 2 β i + ∂ a ∂b β b = −2α Ai j ∂b ln + 16παS i , (1.18)
3 α
7
∇ 2 (αψ) = αψ 5 Ai j Ai j + 2παψ 5 (E + 2S), (1.19)
8

in which Ai j = K i j = ψ −4 (∂ i β j + ∂ j β i − 23 δ i j ∂k β k )/2α.
The initial data problem of numerical relativity in IWM formulation, is then to
use those 5 Poisson equations to solve 5 variables of α, β i , ψ with proper boundary
condition. Considering that the spacetime is asymptotically flat in spatial infinity, the
condition below could be used:

lim ψ = 1 , lim α = 1 , lim β i = 0 . (1.20)

r →∞ r →∞ r →∞

1.5 Hydrostatic Equilibrium for Initial Data Problem

In this thesis, as the main focus is to study the equation of state of compact stars by
constructing quasi-equilibrium models, I will not go into details about the hydrody-
namic formalisms used for numerical relativity evolutions. Instead, I will give a brief
introduction about the formulation of hydrostatic equilibrium calculation which is
used for the purpose of constructing initial data.
There are terms related to hydrodynamic quantities on the right hand side of
Einstein equations, hence in the projected components as well. In order to construct

2 It’s
worth noting that it’s not always valid to assume that the 3-metric on the hypersurface is
conformally flat. In particular, large error may be induced by this approximation in the case when
the compactness of the star (M/R) is large or when the star is rotating very fast. In such cases,
one normally has to apply more components of Einstein equation (thus less assumptions) for more
accurately determining the initial data. In a method which is called waveless formulation, all the
components of Einstein equation are used for calculating initial data [33].
10 1 Introduction

an initial data, we need to also make sure those quantities satisfy the hydrostatic
equilibrium. This could be obtained from the conservation laws for hydro quantities,
namely, the conservation of rest mass, momentum and energy. Such conservation
laws could be written in the covariant form as:

∇μ (ρu μ ) = 0
(1.21)
∇μ T μν = 0

The energy momentum tensor Tμν , under a perfect fluid approximation, is

T μν = (e + p)u μ u ν + pg μν (1.22)

in which e and p is the energy density and pressure of the fluid, respectively. We
could introduce specific enthalpy as h = e+ρ p , in which ρ is rest mass density. Thus
the left hand side of energy momentum tensor conservation could be written as

∇β Tαβ = ρ[u β ∇β (hu α ) + ∇α h] + hu α ∇β (ρu β ) − ρT ∇α s, (1.23)

in which s is the specific entropy of the fluid. The existence of s is by applying the
first law of thermal dynamics, i.e., dh = T ds + dp/ρ
By substituting the conservation of rest mass as well as the adiabatic condition
u α ∇α s = 0, we can obtain

u β ∇β (hu α ) + ∇α h = Lu (hu α ) + ∇α h = 0. (1.24)

When considering a particular physical process, we could further simplify this

equation with the symmetry of the physical problem. For instance, when considering
a rotating compact star, the motion of the fluid follows a helical symmetry in four
dimensional spacetime, i.e.,

u α = u t k α = u t (t α + φα ). (1.25)

With such a condition, there exists a constant integral for the motion of the fluid
which can be obtained from Eq. (1.24):

h
exp [ j ()d] = const (1.26)
ut

in which j () = u t u φ is called the differential rotation law which we will further
discuss and introduce in later chapters. An equilibrium configuration of a rotating
compact stars could be obtained by solving the equation above.3
By far, we have already obtained the equations for solving the initial data of
spacetime metric (Eqs. 1.17, 1.18 and 1.19) as well as the equation for hydrostatic

3 For more detailed discussions c.f. [33].

1.5 Hydrostatic Equilibrium for Initial Data Problem 11

equilibrium (Eq. 1.24). One more piece is needed to connect all the thermal dynamic
variables of the fluid before we can solve those equations, this final piece is given by
the equation of state (EoS).

1.6 Equation of State of Compact Stars

Due to the non-perturbative property of strong interaction at the energy scale of

compact stars, it is not possible to obtain the EoS of compact stars, nor can we answer
the question that whether it should be a neutron star or strange quark star. In spite
of such difficulty, many attempts have been carried out to model the EoS of dense
matter with either phenomenological models or effective approaches. Once such
model is given, one can then close the system of general relativistic hydrodynamics
and obtain solutions of it. By comparing such solutions with observations, constraint
on the EoS models could be made. This has become a common way of studying the
EoS of compact stars. The simplest one, for instance, is to calculate the hydrostatic
equilibrium configuration of a non-rotating compact star (by solving TOV equation)
and obtain the maximum mass of such a non-rotating configuration (MTOV ), and then
compare with the current measurement on the mass of massive pulsars [3, 13].
One popular way to model neutron star equation of state is the so-called piecewise
polytrobe parameterization:

pi = κi ρi = κi ρ1+1/ni , i = 1, 2, . . . , N . (1.27)

With this relation, following first law of thermal dynamics we can obtain
 
e+ p e p
de = dρ, or d = 2 dρ . (1.28)
ρ ρ ρ

We can then derive the dependence of energy density and specific enthalpy on rest
mass density,
κi
ei = ρi + ρi
i − 1
ei + pi i κi i −1 (1.29)
hi = = ρ +1
ρi i − 1

which allows us to compute all the quantities needed for solving the general rela-
tivistic hydro equation system.4
However, under the conjecture that 3-flavor quark matter (with u, d and s quark)
might be the absolute stable state of dense matter [7, 37], there could exist another

4 Note the term ρ in the expression of energy density. From the perspective of physics, this could
be understood as the contribution of rest mass energy. From mathematical point of view, this is
actually the integration constant when we calculate e from de/dρ. We will turn back to this point
when we talk about strange quark stars, which has a different integration constant.
12 1 Introduction

type of compact stars, namely strange quark star, which is self-bound by strong
interaction and hence possesses a finite surface density. To describe the EoS of such
kind of matter, a so-called MIT bag model is widely used [12]:

p = σ(e − es ) , (1.30)

in which σ and es are two constants. When the mass of strange quark can be neglected,
σ is equal to 1/3. The non-zero constant es describes the finite surface energy density
of strange quark stars and is related to the so-called bag constant as B = es /4.
Another model that we will concentrate on in this thesis, is the strangeon star
model [22] which is also composed of u, d, s quarks but quarks are still confined in
so-called strangeon. One way to obtain the EoS model of strangeon star is to compare
the interactions between clusters of quarks with the interaction of molecules and
model this interaction with Lennard-Jones potential [21]. Considering the fact that
the residual strong interaction between strangeons could still be large enough at such
energy scale, it’s suggested that strangeons in strangeon stars could be crystallized.
Within such a model, the EoS is given as

1 1 4
p = 4U0 (12.4r012 n 5 − 8.4r06 n 3 ) + (6π 2 ) 3 cn 3 , (1.31)
8
in which U0 and r0 are two model parameters which characterize the depth of the
interaction potential and the length scale of the interaction, respectively. Besides, the
number of quarks in each strangeon is needed for converting the number density n to
rest mass density ρ. In this thesis, we mainly focus on the model with U0 = 50 MeV
and Nq = 18.
It is worth noting that, strictly speaking, it’s not appropriate to calculate strangeon
star model with perfect fluid model, as strangeon star is suggested to be in solid state
[38]. Nevertheless, according to the calculation in [42], the critical strain of solid
strangeon star is really tiny. Whenever the relative difference between the actual
eccentricity of the star and that of the equilibrium configuration is larger than 10−6 ,
starquake will be induced to bring the star back to the equilibrium configuration. As
a consequence, we believe that configuration calculated with perfect fluid approxi-
mation should be almost the same as the case when elastic structure is considered.
Similar to strange quark stars, strangeon star also possesses a non-zero surface
density. Apart from this, the integration constant when calculating energy density
by integrating the first law of thermal dynamics, is no longer equal to ρ. To account
for such differences with neutron stars, we have found that the following polynomial
form of EoS could be a good description of strange stars5 :

5 In this thesis, the concept of ‘compact star’ includes neutron star, strange quark star and strangeon

star models. And due to the similarity of strange quark star and strangeon star model, they will all
be called ‘strange star’ when it’s not necessary to refer to a particular model of them.
1.6 Equation of State of Compact Stars 13


N
p= κi ρi . (1.32)
i=1

The energy density and specific enthalpy are then given as


N
κi
e= ρi + ρ(1 + C) , (1.33)
i=1
i − 1

 + p  i κi i −1
N
h= = ρ +1+C. (1.34)
ρ i=1
i − 1

Note that ρ(1 + C), the integration constant, for neutron star is ρ, namely C =
0. Whereas for MIT bag model, when mass of strange quark could be neglected,
C = −1.

1.7 Numerical Code: COCAL

To obtain initial data, we have to solve the above equations (i.e., equations for deter-
mining gravitational field Eqs. (1.17)–(1.19), equations for hydrostatic equilibrium
Eq. (1.24) as well as EoS for the fluid) numerically. To do this, the so-called Compact
Object CALculator (cocal) is employed for most of the numerical calculations done
in this thesis. cocal code is capable for calculating configurations of binary compact
star systems such as binary black hole (BBH), binary neutron star (BNS) and black
hole-neutron star binaries (BH-NS) [29, 31, 32, 34], as well as 3 dimensional config-
urations of rotating compact stars [17, 33, 41, 43]. Calculations of self-gravitating
disc system around a black hole as well as magnetized rotating neutron stars have
been recently implemented into the code as well [30, 35].
The basic idea of solving for initial data with cocal originates from the method to
calculate structure of stars in Newtonian scheme in [24], which was then adopted to
general relativistic cases by Komatsu, Eriguchi and Hachisu [20]. In order to include
the calculation of strange stars, the EoS part of the code is modified as well as the
treatment for the surface of the star. The surface-fit coordinate employed in the code
allows us to deal with the sharp surface discontinuity of strange stars.
It’s worth noting that, the polynomial form to deal with strange star EoS is actually
more general than that of the neutron star. In another word, we could in principle
apply the polynomial form to describe any NS EoS as well once the surface density
and the integration constant of first law of thermal dynamics is carefully treated. This
allows us to test the accuracy and convergence behavior of our code, for which more
details could be found in [41].
14 1 Introduction

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Chapter 2
Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

2.1 Introduction

During the inspiral stage of a binary merger event, due to the energy dissipation of
the gravitational wave (GW) emission, the orbital separation shrinks and orbital fre-
quency increases with time. Consequently, the frequency and amplitude of the GW
increases as time. According to the frequency and frequency derivative of the GW
signal, the so-called chirp mass of the system, which is a combination of each com-
ponent masses M = (m 1 m 2 )3/5 (m 1 + m 2 )−1/5 , could be determined very precisely.
In the early inspiral stage, the binary separation is large and the motion is rel-
atively slow, the finite size and detailed structure of the component compact stars
could be neglected and treated as point masses. Whereas in the late inspiral, as the
relativistic effect becomes important, more information could be extracted from GW
signals in high frequencies, e.g. the finite size effect of the compact stars. Study-
ing the mass-radius relation, or in another word the size of compact stars, has been
widely recognized as a crucial and convincing way to distinguish between different
EoS models of compact stars, and is a very interesting topic for ground based GW
observatories as well. In the recent decades, works has been done in determining the
influence of the radius of NSs on the GW template by constructing binary NS (BNS)
initial data [16], as well as analyzing the spectrum properties of GW emission from
dynamical evolution of different BNS configurations and with various EoS [33]. To
constrain NS radius from BH-NS merger events has also been studied [37].
This dream of using GW observation to constrain the size of NSs has finally
come true in August 17th 2017, with the detection of the inspiral GW signal from a
BNS system GW170817 [35]. The so-called tidal deformability parameter has been
measured and constrained from the GW signal [17, 18]. Due to the presence of
matter, NS in a binary system will be deformed by the tidal field of its companion.
In the late inspiral phase, this tidal deformation is phase-coherent with the orbital
motion, hence contributes to additional energy dissipation through GW emission
and accelerate the coalescence. As a result, this tidal deformation leaves a detectable

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 17

E. Zhou, Studying Compact Star Equation of States with General
Relativistic Initial Data Approach, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4151-3_2
18 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

signature in the high frequency GW signal. In general, a NS with a larger size will be
more likely to be deformed by its companion, as the gravitational bound is relatively
weaker compared to a smaller NS with the same mass. Hence, the tidal deformability
constraint obtained from the observation of GW170817 (initially as (1.4) < 800
+390
for low spin priors and later improved to (1.4) = 190−120 [2, 35]).
In this chapter, I will talk about 3 models we have considered to interpret the tidal
deformability constraint: strange quark star model, strangeon star model as well as
a NS model based on quark mean field models. Due to the finite surface density of
strange stars, the calculation of tidal deformability requires a surface correction for
strange stars, which results in significant difference when one wants to translate the
tidal deformability constraint into constraint on radius or maximum mass of compact
stars.

2.2 Background

2.2.1 Calculation of Tidal Deformability

In order to test EoS models with the tidal deformability constraint from GW
observations, we have to first obtain the tidal deformability for any given EoS
with theoretical calculations. A quadrupole moment Q i j will be induced if the
star is affected by an external field Ei j , the ratio of which characterizes the tidal
deformability λ = −Q i j /Ei j . This ratio is related to the so-called tidal love num-
ber as k2 = 23 λR −5 . In practice, a dimensionless tidal deformability is widely used
 = λ/M 5 = 23 k2 (R/M)5 .
In order to calculate k2 theoretically, we usually add l = 2 perturbations on to the
spacetime of a static spherically symmetric star.1 In this section, we will introduce
the way to calculate k2 and hence  based on [18].
The structure of a static spherical star as well as its spacetime could be obtained by
solving the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkhoff Equation (TOV equation). After intro-
ducing the l = 2 mode perturbation to the spacetime metric, both the Einstein tensor
on the left hand side of Einstein equations and the energy momentum tensor will be
altered by the perturbation:
G μν = G (0)
μν + δG μν
(0)
(2.1)
Tμν = Tμν + δTμν ,

in which, G (0) and T (0) already solve Einstein equation as they are solutions of the
TOV equation. As a result, the perturbed part needs to satisfy:

δG μν = 8π δTμν , (2.2)

1 This is also the origin of the lower index ‘2’ in k

2 . In principle, one can also try to calculate higher
mode tidal deformability, c.f. [12] for a more comprehensive discussion.
2.2 Background 19

which could be considered as the perturbed Einstein equations.

After simplifying the equation with symmetry conditions, the non-zero part of the
equation yields:

 
 2  λ 2m(r )
H +H +e + 4πr ( p − e)
r r2
    (2.3)
6eλ λ e+ p 2
+ H − 2 + 4π e 5e + 9 p + − ν = 0,
r dp/de

in which H characterizes the perturbation in the metric and  denotes the derivative
with respect to the radial direction d/dr . λ and ν in this equation are related to the
spacetime metric components obtained from a TOV solution.2 Variables related to
quantities of the star (m(r ), p and e) should also be obtained by solving the TOV
equation.
Equation (2.3) could be solved in the interior and exterior of the star. In the
interior, we need to pay special attention to the boundary condition for solving
this differential equation. We usually start the numerical integration at r = 0 for
solving TOV equation. However, it’s not possible for Eq. (2.3) as r appears in the
denominator multiple times so we have to start from a finite r . In addition, H is
arbitrarily introduced to describe the perturbation of the tidal field so the absolute
amplitude doesn’t really matter in this calculation. Nevertheless, Eq. (2.3) is a second
order differential equation. Therefore we have to provide H and H  consistently at
the boundary to obtain the correct result. Noticing that when r approaches 0, there
is an approximate solution to Eq. (2.3):
 
2π e(0) + p(0) 2
H (r ) = a0 r 2 1 − (5e(0) + 9 p(0) + )r + O(r 3 ) (2.4)
7 (dp/de)(0)

hence
H  ∼ 2a0 r ∼ 2H/r. (2.5)

In the case of finite and small r , any combination of H and H  that satisfies Eq.
(2.5) will become an appropriate boundary condition for numerically solve Eq. (2.3).
Given the boundary condition near the center of the star, we can then numerical
solve Eq. (2.3) to the surface of the star. In the exterior of the star, due to the absence
of terms related to the fluid, Eq. (2.3) reduces to a much simpler form as
   λ 
2 6e
H  + − λ H  − + λ 2
H = 0, (2.6)
r r2

2 When solving for the static spherical spacetime, the line element could be generally written as
ds 2 = −eν(r ) dt 2 + eλ(r ) dr 2 + r 2 (dθ 2 + sin2 θdφ 2 ).
20 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

which has general solution in the following form

⎡   ⎤
 r 2   2
2M ⎣ M (M − r ) 2M + 6Mr − 3r
2
3

r

H = c1 1− − + log ⎦+
M r r 2 (2M − r )2 2 r − 2M
 r 2  2M

3c2 1− .
M r
(2.7)

For sufficiently large r , this general solution could be approximated as

 3  4
8 M M  r 2 r 
H= c1 + O +3 c2 + O . (2.8)
5 r r M M

In addition, we also know that the tt component of the spacetime metric

approaches the following for sufficiently large r :
 
1 − gtt M 3Q i j 1 1
=− − n n − δi j
i j
+ Ei j x i x j . (2.9)
2 r 2r 3 3 2

Now that H is the perturbation on top of TOV solutions, we could compare the
above two approximations and find the correspondence between the them. From the
correspondence we could deduce

15 1
c1 = λEE
8 M3 (2.10)
1
c2 = M 2 E.
3
Therefore, the information about λ the tidal deformability is encoded in the ratio
of c1 and c2 .
Now let’s consider again the solution we obtained in the interior of the star by
numerically solving Eq. (2.3). This interior solution should match the solution of the
exterior on the surface of the star, hence helping us determine the ratio between c1
and c2 according to the quantities on the surface. Following this logic, with a little
bit more efforts figuring out the algebra, we obtain

8C 5
k2 = (1 − 2C)2 [2 + 2C(y − 1) − y] ×
5  
{2C(6 − 3y + 3C(5y − 8)) + 4C 3 13 − 11y + C(3y − 2) + 2C 2 (1 + y)
+ 3(1 − 2C)2 [2 − y + 2C(y − 1)] log(1 − 2C)}−1 , (2.11)

in which C = M/R is the compactness of the star and y = R H  (R)/H (R).

2.2 Background 21

Now it becomes clear why the calculation of tidal deformability for strange stars
is different. Due to the non-zero surface density, a correction has to be made to match
the interior and exterior solutions on the surface [12, 30].3 After estimating H  and
H on the surface of the star by solving Eq. (2.3), the correct y is given as
es
y = R H  (R)/H (R) − , (2.12)
M/4π R 3

in which es is the energy density on the surface and M, R are the mass and radius of
the star, respectively.

2.2.2  Constraint of GW170817

As mentioned before, after knowing the way to theoretically calculate tidal

deformablity, we also need to compare the results with the observation. In Aug 17th
2017, LIGO and VIRGO detected a signal from a BNS inspiral stage. The source
is localized in an area of around 28 square degrees and the distance is determined
to be roughly 40 Mpc. A short gamma ray burst (sGRB) was detected 1.7 s after the
merger inferred from the GW signal. Hours later, the kilonova emission [24] which
is powered by the radioactivities of the heavy elements synthesized in the neutron
rich ejecta 4 has been detected as well in optical/UV/IR bands. The host galaxy of
this BNS merger event has also been confirmed accordingly: NGC 4993. Roughly
ten days later, the counterparts in X-ray band and radio band have been observed as
well [36].
According to the GW emission in the inspiral stage, the chirp mass of the binary
system is determined as 1.188 solar mass, with mass ratio between 0.7 and 1.0.
According to such information, the total mass of the binary is found to be between
2.73–3.29 solar masses, with the mass of the components being 0.86–2.26 solar
masses. This is consistent with the double NS systems observed in the Galaxy. The
detection of the electromagnetic (EM) counterparts also supports this event is indeed
caused by a BNS merger.
The late inspiral GW signal has put constraints on the tidal deformability of the
merger binary. The parameter which is directly constrained by the observation is the
mass-weighted binary tidal deformability:

16 (m 1 + 12 m 2 ) m 41 1 + (m 2 + 12 m 1 )m 42 2
˜ =
 . (2.13)
13 (m 1 + m 2 )5

3 Note that in [30] there is a sign mismatch for this correction.

4 Note that other models could also explain the kilonova observation, for example, by the spin down

power injection of the central remnant [21, 25].

22 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

The constraint on  ˜ is an upper limit of 800 in the low spin case (|χ | < 0.05) and
700 in the high spin case (|χ | < 0.89). According to the study in [9], it’s not possible
to tidally synchronize the spin of the component NSs with realistic viscosity during
the late inspiral stage. Therefore, the low spin scenario is more likely to be valid and
we will only consider the constraint in the low spin prior in this thesis. By expanding
˜ around a given NS mass, say (1.4), this constraint could be further translated as
(1.4) < 800 in the low spin prior.
In addition, according to the EM counterparts in the optical/UV/IR bands, the mass
of the ejecta could be inferred [1], which has been found to be positively correlated to
the tidal deformability of the merging binary. According to the this relation, a lower
bound for the tidal deformability is derived (1.4) > 400, according to the minimum
amount of ejecta to explain the observation of EM counterparts [31]. Nevertheless,
in a more comprehensive investigation on the EoS parameterization as well as mass
ratio of the binary, such a lower limit is found to be not very reliable [19].

2.2.3 Constraint on NS Models

The observations mentioned in the previous section favors more compact EoSs by
only looking at the tidal deformability measurement, such as APR4 or SLy [3, 15].
Nevertheless, such EoS models are all constructed within certain nuclear physics
models and might not be the real EoS that nature uses to build NSs. A more com-
prehensive study could be done by treating (1.4) as a functional of the EoS (which
is a function of p = p(ρ) in the simplest case). Such interpretation are done in e.g.
[2, 6, 27]. For instance, in [2], the logarithm of the adiabatic indexes are treated as a
polynomial of the pressure, namely  = ( p; γi ) in which γi = (γ0 , γ1 , γ2 , γ3 ) are
freely chosen as parameters. For low density (say below half the nuclear saturation
density), the EoS is connected to the SLy EoS [15]. Sampling of the EoS models
is then to uniformly sample γi in certain intervals. For each of the EoS samples
in this systematic study, the mass radius relation and tidal deformability could be
theoretically calculated and then constrained by the observation of both the tidal
deformability and mass measurement of massive pulsars [7, 14]. According to such
a systematic study, the radius of the merging NSs of GW170817 is found to be
R = 11.9+1.4
−1.4 km. Similar analysis is done in e.g. [6], which constrains the radius of
a 1.4 solar mass NS to be in the range of [9.9, 13.8] km. However, it’s worth noting
that such analysis might be affected by choices of EoS priors. In [27], it has been
pointed out that when the prior for possible twin star (for which there is hadron-
quark phase transition inside the star) branch EoSs is considered, the radius get less
constrained, i.e., R1.4 ∈ [8.53, 13.74] km.
Following such systematic investigations, some suggestions have been made to
explore the correlation between tidal deformability and radius of NSs (such as in
[41]). Intuitively, for NSs with a certain mass, it is true that the smaller the radius, the
stronger the bound by self-gravity and thus the less likely to be deformed by external
tidal fields. In the most extreme limit, the compact star with smallest radius, i.e. a BH,
2.2 Background 23

Table 2.1 Properties of NS models investigated in [43] with the symmetry energy slope L being
the EoS parameter. Properties of 1.4 solar mass stars as well as TOV maximum mass with four
different choices of L are listed, including radius, compactness, k2 and tidal deformability 
L [MeV] R [km] M/R k2  MTOV [M ]
20 11.725 0.17499 0.12064 471 2.088
40 11.829 0.17481 0.08816 331 2.078
60 12.011 0.17216 0.07404 326 2.068
80 12.512 0.16526 0.06889 373 2.070

has tidal deformability of zero. Nevertheless, from the introduction in the previous
section, it could be seen that the dependence of (1.4) and R is not necessarily
monotonic. We have explored this correlation based on quark mean field (QMF)
models (for more details see [43]) and demonstrated that even for a certain nuclear
physical model, there is no monotonic relation between (1.4) and R. Therefore,
one has to be careful in investigating or employing such correlations.
Generally speaking, for symmetric nuclear matter (namely, matter with β =
n n −n p
n n +n p
= 0), we have quite good understanding both from theoretical studies and
from experiments [13]. While for NSs which is composed of highly asymmetric
nuclear matter, our knowledge is relatively less, due to the uncertainty of, for exam-
ple, the slope of the symmetry energy (L(n) = d E sym /dn). In this work, we try to
model NS EoS in the QMF scenario in which L is an important parameter which
helps us better understand the dependence of tidal deformability on radius and L.
We have studied four cases with L = 20, 40, 60 and 80 MeV, respectively. Accord-
ing to Table 2.1, the slope of symmetry energy L has very significant influence on
the radius of the NSs but not on the TOV maximum mass. Specifically, the larger L
is, the larger the size of the NS is. This is known as the famous L-versus-R relation
[22]. However, the tidal deformability of a NS with 1.4 solar mass is found to be
not monotonic with the choice of L, hence not monotonic with radius of the NS ss
well. As a consequence, it’s not possible to directly translate the tidal deformability
constraint into the constraint on radius of the NS, at least within this EoS model.

2.3 Constraint on Strangeon Star Model with GW170817

2.3.1 Tidal Deformability of Strangeon Star

In the case of NS models, an EoS model is usually referred as a ‘soft’ EoS if the
tidal deformability is small.5 Intuitively, for NSs with a certain mass, if the EoS is
softer, the self-gravity tends to make the star more compact thus more difficult to be

5 As
a consequence, many literatures claim that the observation of GW170817 favors ‘soft’ EoS
models (c.f. [6]).
24 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

deformed by external fields. In the limit of extremely soft EoS, the NS will not be
able to fight self-gravity and collapse to BH, which has a tidal deformability of zero.
At the same time, the stiffness of the EoS is also related to the TOV maximum
mass of NSs (MTOV ). It has been shown that there is some correlation between
(1.4) and MTOV . According to the studies in [6], for example, the upper limit of
800 for (1.4) will exclude NS EoS models with MTOV larger than roughly 2.8
solar masses. Provided the fact that strangeon star model predicts very large MTOV
(larger than 3 solar masses), one might simply conclude that strangeon star model
could not pass the test of tidal deformability constraint with GW170817. However,
as mentioned before, the most significant difference between strange stars and NSs
is that NSs are bound by gravity whereas strange stars are self-bound by strong
interaction. For strange stars, the relation between the stiffness of the EoS models
and the compactness of a given mass is not the same as NSs.
As mentioned in previous section, the self-bound nature of strange stars result in
a finite surface density which requires special correction when calculating the tidal
deformability. We have done the analysis for strangeon star with model parameter
U0 = 50 MeV and Nq = 18. Although the TOV maximum mass is as high as 3 solar
masses, the dimensionless tidal deformability for a 1.4 solar mass strangeon star is
found to be only 381.9, which is similar to ‘soft’ NS EoSs such as APR4 and SLy.
More details about this comparison is shown in Fig. 2.1.
Although both strangeon star model and conventional NS models (such as APR4
and SLy) satisfy the tidal deformability constraint of GW170817, the TOV maximum
mass of SLy is only slightly larger than 2 M (2.05 M ). While APR4 EoS model
only includes {npeμ} particles and was initially proposed for exploring whether the
central density of NSs is large enough for excitation of hyperons. As a consequence,
the hyperon puzzle is unavoidable for such EoS models [11].
In order to understand how we can constrain the strangeon star model with future
observations, we have also made an investigation on the parameters (i.e., U0 and ρs )
of the strangeon star model. This result is shown in Fig. 2.2. According to the results
shown in the figure, it could be seen that the correlation between (1.4) and MTOV
still holds for strangeon star qualitatively, as the case for NSs. Nevertheless, the
quantitative result changed a lot. The largest possible MTOV is 4 M while the tidal
deformability constraint is still satisfied. Future mass measurement of very massive
pulsars (i.e., pulsars with mass ∼3 M ) or EM counterparts of mass gap merger
events (component mass ∈ [3, 5] M ) might be a smoking gun for the existence of
strangeon star.

2.3.2 Test of Solid Strangeon Star Model

Another significant difference between strangeon star model and NS model is that
the latter is suggested to be entirely solid [40] whereas NSs only possess a solid crust.
It’s not very accurate to calculate the tidal deformability with the energy momentum
tensor of perfect fluid for a solid strangeon star. Indeed, due to the existence of shear
2.3 Constraint on Strangeon Star Model with GW170817 25

3000

2500

2000
Λ2

1500

strangeon star
90
1000

%
APR4
500 SLy
50
%

MPA1
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Λ1

3000

2500

2000
Λ2

1500

strangeon star
90%

1000
APR4
SLy
50%

500
MPA1
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Λ1
Fig. 2.1 Comparison of the tidal deformability of strangeon star model with the observation of
GW170817. The upper panel shows the results for low spin prior (|χ| < 0.05) and the lower panel
for high spin prior (|χ| < 0.89). The dashed lines are the 50% (the one closer to the bottom left
corner) and 90% posterior contour [35]. Results of strangeon star model (in grey areas) as well as
3 other NS models are shown. Strangeon star model is still consistent with the observation. This
figure is adopted from [21]
26 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

100

00
4M

=8
90 =
V

.4)
TO
M

Λ(1
80

70

0
60
U0 [MeV]

=
60

4)
1.
Λ(
50
M
= 3.5
40 V
M TO 00
=4
4)
Λ (1.
30
= 3M
M TOV
20
1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2.0
ρs [ρnuc]

Fig. 2.2 Parameter space exploration for the strangeon star model. By fixing values for U0 (y-axis)
and ρs (x-axis), we could obtain an EoS model and solve the TOV maximum mass and (1.4) for
each EoS model. Contours of (1.4) (blue dashed lines) and MTOV (black solid lines) are shown to
indicate possible parameter space. It could be seen that the TOV maximum mass of strangeon star
model could be as high as 4 M without violating the tidal deformability constraint. This figure is
adopted from [20]

module as well as the accumulation of elastic energy, it will be more difficult to

deform a solid compact star compared with the case of a star composed of perfect
fluid. Consequently, the real tidal deformability of strangeon star should be even
smaller than the results calculated in the previous sections.
According to the discussion in [30], if the induced mass quadrupole moment of
a solid star by a tidal field exceeds the critical value that the elastic structure of the
star could stand, such a solid star will crack. In another word, the solid star will be
tidally melt. For NSs, the solid crust only contributes very tiny amount of matter
to the entire star. The critical mass quadrupole of the solid crust is thus very small.
Therefore, BNS could be entirely treated as perfect fluid in the sensitive frequency
band of LIGO and VIRGO, as the tidal field will be sufficient to destroy the solid crust
of NSs during the merger at large orbital separations hence at low GW frequency
(i.e., when GW frequency is smaller than 10 Hz). However, for strangeon star which
is entirely solid, details need to be considered.
As discussed in [30], in a binary merger event, when the tidal field is too strong
for the solid structure of the star to stand, the GW frequency radiated by the binary
is
2.3 Constraint on Strangeon Star Model with GW170817 27
 1/4  
2 1 Q 22max
f br =
3 π λ
 1/2  −1/2 (2.14)
Q 22max λ
= 20 × Hz,
1040 g cm2 2 × 1036 g cm2 s2

in which Q 22max is the critical mass quadrupole moment that the solid star could stand.
For a strangeon star with 1.4 solar mass, the typical value of  is 2 × 1036 g cm2 s2 .
The critical mass quadrupole moment of a solid compact star is estimated as [29]:
 6  −1
μ R M σmax
Q 22max = 2.8 × 1041 g cm2 ,
4 × 1032 erg cm−3 10 km 1.4 M 0.01
(2.15)
in which μ is the shear module with a typical value of 4 × 1032 erg cm−3 as suggested
by [40] and σmax is the breaking strain for the solid structure.
Combining the above two equations, it could be derived that the tidal melting for a
binary strangeon star merger occurs when the frequency of the GW emitted is roughly
100 Hz. This is lower than the frequency when information on tidal deformability
could be effectively extracted. As a result, the perfect fluid assumption is in fact
valid for calculating the tidal deformability of strangeon stars to compare with the
observations.
View it differently, due to the lack of knowledge on the EoS of dense matter, there
is huge uncertainty in the shear module and breaking strain for solid strangeon stars.
If the real value of μ could be one or two magnitudes larger, the tidal melting will
happen at f GW ∼ 500 Hz for binary strangeon star mergers. This actually provides
an opportunity for us to study the solid structure of strangeon star with future obser-
vations once the sensitivity of LIGO and VIRGO is further improved. For instance,
if there is the hint that tidal effect is negligible when GW frequency is lower than
a certain value and tidal effect becomes finite after reaching this GW frequency, it
could be inferred as evidence of solid structure of the merging binary. And according
to this critical GW frequency, parameters such as shear module and breaking strain
could be constrained.

2.4 Constraint on MIT Bag Model with GW170817

2.4.1 The EoS Model

Apart from strangeon star, we have also considered a conventional strange star model:
MIT bag model [4]. MIT bag model was originally proposed to understand hadrons
phenomenologically. If constraints on the parameters of MIT bag model could be
made by the observation of GW170817, it would greatly enrich our knowledge
28 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

about strong interaction. Moreover, such constraint is totally independent of nuclear

physical theories as well as nuclear experiments. This is the motivation of such a
parameter study.
In the description of MIT bag model, strange star is composed of {u, d, s, e}
particles. The following weak interactions is important for understanding the EoS of
strange quark star:

d → u + e + ν̃e , u + e → d + νe , s → u + e + ν̃e , u + e → s + νe , s + u → d + u.
(2.16)

Charge neutrality and β equilibrium should be preserved in the star:

μs = μd = μu + μe
2 1 1 (2.17)
n u − n d − n s − n e = 0.
3 3 3
The grand canonical potential of such a thermaldynamic system is
 3  μ 4
b
free = i0 + 2
(1 − a 4 ) + Beff , (2.18)
i
4π 3

in which i0 is the thermaldynamic potential of each species of the particles (the
lower index i corresponds to 4 species of u, d, s, e particles) assuming that they
are ideal relativistic Fermi gases. The second term on the right hand side represents
the perturbative QCD corrections due to gluon mediated interaction between quarks
up to O(αs2 ). The parameter a4 stands for the degree of such a correct, with a4 = 1 for
no correction. The term μb = μu + μd + μs is the baryon chemical potential.6 The
third term Beff is the effective bag constant, which is a phenomenological parameter
characterizing the non-perturbative QCD effects.
EoS of such a strange star could be obtained once the grand canonical potential
is given. The energy density could be derived as

e= μi n i + . (2.19)
i

Pressure and number density could then be obtained from first law of thermal
dynamics:  
∂ e
P = n 2b (2.20)
∂n b n b

6 Note that in MIT bag model, the strange star is composed of deconfined quarks. Therefore, there
is no baryons inside the star. The concept of “baryon chemical potential” is just for the convenience
of calculation.
2.4 Constraint on MIT Bag Model with GW170817 29

  μq3 1  μ 3
b
n q = − ∂/∂μq V = 2 − 2 (1 − a4 ) (2.21)
π π 3
1 a4  μb 3
nb = nq ∼ 2 . (2.22)
3 q π 3

In practice, the mass of u, d quarks is much smaller than that of strange quark
and we can neglect the rest mass of u, d quarks. If one also neglects the mass of
s quark, the EoS of strange star in MIT bag model will be simplified as the form
of Eq. (1.30). With such a form, different choices of a4 will not affect the relation
between pressure and energy density. As a consequence, the mass radius relation
will be totally independent on the value of a4 [8, 23]. In the case of finite s quark
mass, a4 will actually affect the EoS. It indicates that strange quark mass is also a
parameter of the EoS, although not explicitly included in the above equations.
To conclude, for any given {m s , a4 , Beff }, we could construct an EoS model for
strange quark star. Then we can solve TOV equation and the perturbed TOV equa-
tion to solve for the TOV maximum and tidal deformability of strange quark stars,
respectively. By comparing the results with the observation of massive pulsars [7,
14] and GW170817 [35], constraint could be made on {m s , a4 , Beff }.

2.4.2 Constraint on Strange Quark Mass

Among those 3 parameters, m s is the one with the best constraint from nuclear physics
studies (m s = 95 ± 5 MeV [28]). Therefore, we decide to first fix the choice of Beff
and a4 and study the influence of m s on the EoS models. If the impact of m s is not
large within its possible range, we can then confidently fix the value of m s in the
following studies and focus only on Beff and a4 , making this problem simpler.
In practice, we have chosen widely used value for Beff and a4 ((138 MeV)4 and
0.61) and studied three EoS models with different choice of m s (0, 90 and 100 MeV).
The details could be seen from Fig. 2.3 and Table 2.2. In particular, finite strange
quark mass will soften the EoS model, reducing the TOV maximum mass and tidal
deformbaility at the same time. This gives a hint on a similar correlation between
MTOV and  as in the case of NSs and strangeon stars, which we will introduce in
more details in the next subsection. Moreover, the model with zero strange quark
mass predicts a tidal deformability of 791.4 for a 1.4 solar mass star, which marginally
satisfies the initial analysis [35] but will be excluded by the later results [2]. This
provides information on the lower limit of strange quark mass independently from
nuclear physics studies, assuming that GW170817 originates from a binary strange
star merger.
30 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

3000

2500

2000
Λ2

1500

90
1000

% APR4
500
50

SLy
%

MPA1
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Λ1

Fig. 2.3 Investigating the influence of finite strange quark mass on the tidal deformability of strange
quark star models. Comparison is made with the observation of GW170817 (with the two dashed
lines denoted by 50 and 90% representing the 50 and 90% contours of the posterior probability
for the derived tidal deformability of component stars for GW170817 based on a low spin prior
(|χ| < 0.05)) [35] as well as 3 NS models (APR4, SLy and MPA1). Grey, pink and green areas
correspond to the result of MIT bag model with stange quark mass of 0, 90 and 100 MeV, respectively.
Beff is chosen as (138 MeV)4 and a4 is equal to 0.61 for all 3 models. In order to plot the areas, we
have employed the derived component masses (M1 , M2 ) within 90% posterior probability. It could
be seen that in the previous constrained range of strange quark mass (i.e., from 90 to 100 MeV)
or even neglecting strange quark mass, the results all pass the test of GW170817 with this certain
choice of {a4 , Beff } [42]

Table 2.2 Properties of strange quark stars with 1.4 solar masses in MIT bag model with three
different choices of strange quark mass, including central number density (n c ), radius (R), compact-
ness (M/R), tidal love number k2 , dimensionless tidal deformability  as well as TOV maximum
mass MTOV . More details could be found in [42]
m s [MeV] n c [fm−3 ] R [km] M/R k2  MTOV [M ]
0 0.327 11.814 0.17499 0.19510 792.8 2.217
90 0.355 11.478 0.18016 0.18357 644.9 2.101
100 0.361 11.415 0.18115 0.18133 619.7 2.079

Although increasing strange quark mass will result in strange stars with smaller
radius hence smaller tidal deformability, the difference in both tidal deformability
and TOV maximum mass is negligible for possible range of m s and they all pass the
test of observation of massive pulsars and GW170817. Considering this, we will fix
m s to 100 MeV and study the effects of other parameters in the following analysis.
2.4 Constraint on MIT Bag Model with GW170817 31

2.4.3 Constraint on Beff and a4

Once m s is fixed as 100 MeV, the EoS model will be uniquely determined for a given
pair of Beff and a4 . In order to do this parameter study, we have varied a4 uniformly
1/4
between the range of (0.5, 1.0) and Beff in (134, 142) MeV. For each of those EoS
models, we could determine their TOV maximum mass and tidal deformability. By
interpolating the results onto the entire parameter space we could find out the possible
parameter space for Beff and a4 according to nuclear stability, observation of massive
pulsars and GW170817.
Such a parameter space exploration is shown in Fig. 2.4 with 5 selected models
shown in Table 2.3. Apart from constraint on MTOV and , we have also considered
the stability condition of nuclear physics (green curves in the Figure) [38]. Two flavor
line is derived according to the fact that two flavor quark matter (matter composed of
deconfined {u, d} quarks) should have higher energy compared with nuclei, otherwise
nucleus will spontaneously decay into two flavor quark matter. On the other hand, by
requiring 3 flavor quark matter is more stable than nucleus (thus strange star exists),
we could obtain the constraint given by the ‘3 flavor line’ (this is in essence the
Bodmer-Witten conjecture [10, 39]).
The first property we can find in the results is that (1.4) increases as MTOV ,
which is consistent with the case of NSs (c.f. [6]), strangeon stars [20] as well as when

144

142
2.01 M
140
Λ(1.4) = 600
Beff [MeV]

138
1/4

136
Λ(1.4) = 800
134
2.2 M

132

130
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
a4

Fig. 2.4 Constraint on the parameter space of Beff and a4 parameter in MIT bag model. The mass
of strange quark is chosen to be 100 MeV for all the EoS models. Grey area is all the permitted
parameter space considering the constraint of GW170817 (red curves), mass measurement of pulsars
(black curves) and nuclear stability conditions (green curves). (1.4) = 600 and MTOV = 2.2 M
curves are also included to indicate possible constraints from future observations. This figure is
made according to the results in [42]
32 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

Table 2.3 Properties of 1.4 solar mass strange quark star in MIT bag model. The first two columns
show the model parameters with the other columns showing the properties of the star including radius
(R), compactness (M/R), tidal love number (k2 ) as well as dimensionless tidal deformability ().
Mass of strange quark is fixed to be 100 MeV. This table is produced according to the results in [42]
1/4
a4 Beff [MeV] R [km] M/R k2 
0.61 133 12.046 0.17166 0.19973 893.4
0.61 136 11.662 0.17731 0.18865 717.7
0.61 138 11.415 0.18115 0.18133 619.7
0.72 138 11.453 0.18055 0.18262 634.5
0.83 138 11.482 0.18008 0.18367 646.6

we vary m s in MIT bag model. Similar to the case of strangeon star, the quantitative
dependence of MTOV on (1.4) is different from that of NSs. Additionally, MTOV and
(1.4) both increases monotonically as a4 increases. In another word, perturbative
QCD corrections also tend to soften the EoS models. Nevertheless, quantitatively,
this dependence is very weak hence contour lines of MTOV and (1.4) are almost
horizontal. Opposite to the weak influence of a4 , the effect bag constant significantly
alters the stiffness of the EoS models hence is best constrained.
Combining all the observations, we have figured out the possible range for model
1/4
parameters of the MIT bag model: Beff ∈ (134.1, 141.4) MeV and a4 ∈ (0.56, 0.91).
Those parameters will be better constrained with future observations.
In addition, noticing that the contour curves for TOV maximum mass and those for
tidal deformability are almost parallel to each other (indicating that their dependence
on a4 is highly similar), it could be inferred that there might be a correlation between
MTOV and (1.4). We have fitted the results with different model parameters and
found a power law relation between MTOV and (1.4). Even the models with different
choice of m s follow this relation (see the results in Fig. 2.5):
 5.457
MTOV
(1.4) = 510.058 × . (2.23)
2.01 M

Such a relation means that, within MIT bag model, we could in principle translate
the tidal deformability constraint by GW170817 directly to the constraint on TOV
maximum mass. To be specific, (1.4) not larger than 800 sets an upper limit of 2.18
solar masses for MTOV . On the other hand, the observation of 2 M pulsars indicates
that (1.4) should not be smaller 510.1 in MIT bag model.7 This means we could
totally rule out strange quark models if pulsars with larger mass is observed or a
more stringent tidal deformability upper limit is found in future observations.

7 As a reference, (1.4) for APR4 EoS is 255.8.

2.4 Constraint on MIT Bag Model with GW170817 33

1200
a4 = 0.57
1000 a4 = 0.585
a4 = 0.61
800 a4 = 0.72
a4 = 0.83
Λ(1.4)

ms = 90
600

400

1.9 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3

MTOV [M ]

Fig. 2.5 The correlation between TOV maximum mass of tidal deformability in MIT bag model.
Details about the model parameters are denoted in the top left. The variance of strange quark mass
is also included in this figure, with the black dots for the case of m s = 90 MeV and the other dots
for m s = 100 MeV. The black line is the fitted relation according to the results. Note that all the dots
with different colors and symbols all locate closely to the fitted curve, indicating that this relation
is insensitive to the choice of a4 and m s . This figure is adopted from [42]

2.4.4 Constraint on  Parameter

In the previous section we considered only the simplest MIT bag model. In more
detailed researches [5, 26, 32, 34], it has been pointed out that quarks in bulk quark
matter could form Copper pairs and be in color-superconducting state. In such a
situation, one additional term needs to be considered in the grand canonical potential
of quark matter:
3
CFL = free − 2 2 μ2b , (2.24)
π
in which  represents the energy gap on the Fermi surface due to the formation of
quark pairs. Because of the lack of theoretical studies and experimental constraints,
the energy gap parameter has very large uncertainties and is believed to be in the
range of (0, 100) MeV. Similar to the methods introduced in the previous section,
we have fixed m s as 100 MeV and a4 as 1 or 0.61 and varied Beff and  uniformly in
certain range to obtain different EoS models and then compare with the observations
and nuclear stability conditions to make constraints on the energy gap parameter.
The results are shown in Fig. 2.6. A lower limit of 40 MeV is found for the cases
with a4 = 1 where as almost no constraint is found for  for the more realistic case
of a4 = 0.61. Additionally, the correlation between MTOV and (1.4) becomes less
34 2 Tidal Deformability of Compact Stars

154

152

150
= 600
.4)
Beff [MeV]

148 1M Λ(1
2.0
1/4

146
= 800
.4)
Λ(1
144
M
142 2.2

140
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Δ [MeV]

150

148

146 M
1 M 2.2
2.0
144 0
60 80
0
=
Beff [MeV]

4) =
142 Λ(1. (1.
4)
Λ
1/4

140

138

136

134
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Δ [MeV]

Fig. 2.6 Similar to Fig. 2.4 but with EoS models of color-superconducting quark matter. Observa-
tions of GW170817 and massive pulsars as well as nuclear stability conditions are considered for
constraining the effective bag constant and energy gap parameter. Upper panel shows the case for
a4 = 1 while lower panel for a4 = 0.61. This figure is adopted from [42]
2.4 Constraint on MIT Bag Model with GW170817 35

strict than the case of normal quark matter without pair formation. As a consequence,
the largest possible MTOV in the permitted parameter space is increased to roughly
2.32 M (for both a4 = 1 and a4 = 0.61). On the other hand, the least possible
(1.4) now becomes less than 400 and still possible to reach MTOV ∼ 2 M . Namely,
considering color-superconducting quark matter makes the available parameter space
larger. There is also possibilities to better constrain all the parameters with future
observations or totally exclude strange star models.

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Chapter 3
Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

3.1 Background

In the previous chapter, we have discussed about the tidal deformability measurement
of compact stars with GW170817 and how to apply this measurement to constrain
compact star EoSs and hence on models of strong interaction. Such a constraint is
made mainly via the inspiral GW signal. In fact, important clues could also be found
in the post-merger phase by understanding the evolution of the merger remnant and
its relation with the EM counterparts. On one hand, the post-merger GW spectrum
is closely related to the instabilities of the remnant star and hence to the EoS model
[6, 42]. In addition, many oscillations might be triggered due to the fact that the
remnant is extremely rapidly rotating and become important GW sources [1, 14]. On
the other hand, the properties of the EM counterparts is determined by the type of the
merger remnant and the lifetime of it before collapsing to a BH, which is related to
the rotational properties (i.e., uniform rotation or differential rotation) of the remnant
and MTOV . Considering the above two points, it’s thus very important to study the
equilibrium solutions of rotating compact stars which we will focus in this chapter.

3.1.1 Fate of the Merger Remnant and Maximum Mass

of Compact Stars

Depending on the TOV maximum mass and the total mass of the merging binary,
there might be 4 different outcomes after the merger:
• If the total mass is much larger than the TOV maximum mass, the merger remnant
will promptly collapse to a BH. This critical mass for prompt collapse to happen is
also called the threshold mass (Mthres ). When prompt collapse happens, the ejecta
is mainly caused by the tidal torque in the inspiral stage and will be relatively
less compared with other cases. The amount of ejecta is determined mainly by the
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 37
E. Zhou, Studying Compact Star Equation of States with General
Relativistic Initial Data Approach, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4151-3_3
38 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

mass ratio of the binary. The larger difference in the component masses, the more
matter will be ejected for both BNSs and binary strange stars [7, 34].
It is worth noting that whether or not prompt collapse will happen, depends not
only on the TOV maximum mass but also compactness of the star with a cer-
tain mass. BHs are objects with the largest compactness (M/R = 0.5). The larger
the compactness of the merging star, the more likely the remnant will promptly
collapse to a BH. If we could determine whether or not a prompt collapse hap-
pens for a certain binary merger observation, constraints can be made on the EoS
models [9].
• If total mass of the binary is smaller than the threshold mass but larger than the
maximum mass of rigidly rotating stars, the merger remnant then has to be sup-
ported by differential rotation to avoid collapse to a BH (such stars are called
hypermassive). This differential rotation is normally believed to be dissipated in a
time scale of 10–100 ms, through mechanisms such as magnetorotational instabil-
ity or viscosity. The magnetic field is believed to be enhanced by the differential
rotation as well. When differential rotation is dissipated, the remnant will collapse
to a BH.
In this case, due to the merger shock, the viscosity in the disc as well as the neutrino
irradiation of the central remnant, more matter will be ejected compared with the
prompt collapse case (c.f. a recent review in [41]). Such a delayed BH formation
with enhanced magnetic field is believed to be the key for explaining sGRB [35].
• If the total mass of the binary is even smaller, to be specific, smaller than the max-
imum mass of the uniform rotation case. The remnant could still stably exist as a
rigidly rotating compact star after dissipating the differential rotation (such stars
are called supramassive). Angular momentum dissipation for such a remnant will
happen in a much longer time scale (i.e., from seconds to years) mainly through
magnetic dipole radiation, similar to the case of radio pulsars. Such a remnant
will still collapse to a BH eventually (although lifetime is much longer compared
with the previous cases) after losing enough angular momentum and reach the
marginally stable solutions of uniformly rotating compact stars (which is also
called the turning points). In the magnetar model for sGRB, the spin down power
of such a massive remnant with strong magnetic field is needed for explaining
many observations associated with sGRBs [30, 47]. In the case of a hypermassive
remnant and supramassive remnant, due to the high temperature of the merger
remnant, neutrino irradiation will be very important in determining the weak
interaction equilibrium of the ejecta and changing the electron fraction, which
ultimately change the observation of the EM counterparts. Consequently, the fate
of the merger remnant could be inferred from the observations and then be used
to constraint the maximum mass of compact stars.
• In the case that the total mass of the binary is even smaller than MTOV , the remnant
will then become a stable star. Such scenario is more likely to happen for EoS
models that predicts large MTOV , such as the strangeon star model. Pulsars with
uncommonly large mass, i.e., M > 2 M might be such a remnant resulted from a
merger event in the past. Searching for such massive pulsars will be quite a strong
evidence favoring such stiff EoS models.
3.1 Background 39

In principle, according to the GW radiation of the massive remnant, the fate of the
merger remnant and the time of collapsing to a BH could be determined precisely.
Nevertheless, the post-merger GW radiation frequency is too large for the current
ground based GW observatories to detect [43]. This denies the possibility of robustly
constrain the TOV maximum mass of the EoS models. However, according to what
we have mentioned above, clues about the merger remnant, hence about the EoS,
could still be found by the EM counterparts.

3.1.2 Constraints on NS EoS According to EM Counterparts

of GW170817

Although there is no direct detection of the GW signal from the merger remnant and
ringdown of the BH for the case of GW170817, it is still widely accepted that the
merger remnant of GW170817 is a hypermassive NS or short-lived supramassive NS
which collapses to a BH after sufficient amount of angular momentum is dissipated
[33, 35, 39, 43]. There are mainly 2 reasons for drawing such a conclusion.
Firstly, both the BH formation as well as the enhanced magnetic fields are required
to explain the launching of the relativistic and collimated jet, which is essential for
the observation of sGRB (GRB170817A). In the case of a prompt collapse scenario,
the magnetic field is not strong enough for the launching of the jet, whereas if MTOV
is too large and the lifetime of the remnant is too long, it’s hard to explain the 1.7 s
delay between the merger and the sGRB observation [28, 35].
Secondly, the neutron rich matter ejected during the merger event is an important
site for r-process nucleosynthesis. The radioactive decay of many isotopes synthe-
sized in the ejecta will then inject energy into the ejecta, which powers not only
the adiabatic expansion of the ejecta but also the radiation in optics/UV/IR band,
namely, the kilonova [27, 31]. According to the difference in the electron fraction
of the ejected matter, the abundance of synthesized elements will be quite different.
If the remnant promptly collapse to BH, the matter ejection will be dominated by
the tidal driven ejecta in the late inspiral, which consists of very neutron rich matter
(i.e., electron fraction Ye is low) and leads to the formation of lanthanides. Whereas
in the case of a short-lived massive remnant NSs, additional matter will be ejected
in the polar direction due to the shock as well as in the disc due to the viscous trans-
port process and (neutrino) wind of the remnant. This part of the ejecta will be less
neutron rich (or higher Ye ) due to high temperature and neutrino irradiations and
the abundance of lanthanides will be much less than in the neutron rich ejecta. As a
result, the opacity of the tidal driven ejecta will be much higher and thus kilonova
looks redder and the shock-driven ejecta and wind-driven ejecta will be relatively
bluer. The observation of the transient AT2017gfo indicates the presence of both
components [13] hence disfavors the prompt collapse scenario. On the other hand,
if the remnant lives for too long time, the energy injection from the spinning down
40 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

of the central remnant will significantly accelerate the expansion of the ejecta and
change the luminosity, which is also inconsistent with the observations [29].
According to the two points above, we could conclude that the remnant of
GW170817 neither promptly collapses to a BH, nor lives too long before collapse.
Each of these 2 conclusions provides important insight in the EoS models of NSs:
(1) No prompt collapse By performing smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH)
simulations of binary mergers with various EoS models and various binary param-
eters, the threshold mass is found to be approximately determined by the following
relation [9]:
G Mmax
Mthres = (−3.606 2 + 2.38)Mmax , (3.1)
c R1.6

in which Mmax is the TOV maximum mass of the given EoS and R1.6 being the
radius of the NS with 1.6 solar masses. Given any value for R1.6 , threshold mass
then becomes a quadratic function of MTOV , which has a maximum value. If this
maximum value is smaller than the total mass of the binary for GW170817, which is
2.74 M , then a prompt collapse is inevitable. On the other hand, knowing prompt
collapse didn’t happen for GW170817, we could seek out all the possible range for
R1.6 , which is R1.6 > 10.68 km.
In principle, the fitting formula is not unique and could be expressed with the
radius of any fixed mass. Another way of deriving threshold mass is suggested by
[9] with Rmax which is radius of the NS at TOV maximum mass:

G Mmax
Mthres = (−3.38 + 2.43)Mmax . (3.2)
c2 Rmax

Following a similar logic, Rmax is constrained to be larger than 9.6 km. Future obser-
vations with different total masses will give us further information on NS radius by
applying this analysis.
(2) short-lived remnant massive NS The maximum mass of a rotating NS will be
increased compared, due to the centrifugal force fighting against gravity. The maxi-
mum mass that a rotating star could reach with certain amount of angular momentum,
is called the critical mass for this angular momentum (Mcrit , such a solution is also
called the turning point defined as ∂ M/∂ρc | J = 0). Critical mass increases as angular
momentum of the rotating star increases. Nevertheless, the angular momentum in
the star could not be increased infinitely and the largest possible mass that a rotating
star could reach is the mass limit for rigid rotating star (denoted as MKep as this is
the corresponding Keplerian mass limit in the Newtonian case). The corresponding
angular momentum is then denoted as JKep .
Early studies of rotating NSs in general relativity [12] reveals that the maximum
mass of a rotating NS is roughly 20% larger than MTOV . A more detailed study [11]
has considered 28 EoS models for NSs and figured out that with proper rescaling, the
relation between critical mass and the corresponding angular momentum depends
only very weakly on EoSs:
3.1 Background 41

2.4

2.2

2.0

APR
M [M ]

1.8
SFH0
DD2
1.6
ALF2
1.4

1.2

1.0
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
R [km]

Fig. 3.1 A summary of all the constraints one can make on NS mass-radius relation according
to GW170817 and its EM counterparts with the results of several selected NS EoS models. The
grey areas are excluded by the tidal deformability measurement and the red areas by the fact that
this merger event didn’t result in prompt collapse. Solid horizontal line is set by the observation
of massive pulsars [3] and dashed horizontal lines are given according to the fate of the merger
remnant for GW170817

Mcrit J 2 J 4
= 1 + a2 ( ) + a4 ( ) , (3.3)
MTOV Jkep Jkep

in which a2 = 0.1316 and a4 = 0.07111 by fitting all the results. A direct conclusion
from such a relation is that at Keplerian angular momentum, the mass of the NS is

Mmax = Mcrit (J = Jkep ) = (1 + a2 + a4 )MTOV ∼ (1.203 ± 0.022)MTOV , (3.4)

which is consistent with the results in [12]. Knowing this 20% factor and the assump-
tion that the remnant of GW170817 collapses to BH after differential rotation is
dissipated, one can then constrain the TOV maximum mass of NSs [29, 33, 35] to
be smaller than roughly 2.16–2.17 solar masses. A summary of all the constraint that
one can make on NS EoS models according to GW170817 and its EM counterparts
is shown in Fig. 3.1.
It should be kept in mind that the above constraint is valid only for NSs but not
for strange stars. Due to the self-bound nature of strange quark stars, the structure
of rotating strange stars is quite different from the case of NSs. We will demonstrate
those differences in this chapter by solving the structure of rotating strange stars
and also show how to interpret the observations differently for constraining EoS of
strange stars. Additionally, it is still with doubt whether or not the 2.16 solar mass
42 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

upper limit of MTOV is reliable even for NSs, due to the uncertainties in the angular
momentum of the rotating NS at the time of collapsing to BH. We will also introduce
a more consistent analysis in this chapter to improve the constraint on NS MTOV .

3.2 A More Consistent Constraint on NS MTOV

The MTOV <2.16 M constraint is obtained based on an assumption that the remnant
has sufficiently large angular momentum (J ≥ JKep ) when it collapses to BH. It’s
not certain whether or not this assumption is valid for the merger remnant. In [32], it
has been investigated and argued that the massive remnant NSs are always endowed
with significantly more angular momentum than JKep and claimed that the possibility
of the remnant collapse to BH due to lack of sufficient angular momentum support
is excluded. However, there are still several uncertainties about this analysis. Firstly,
the angular momentum left in the remnant is calculated merely by subtracting the
angular momentum radiated by inspiral GW from the initial angular momentum,
hence could not account for the angular momentum loss by neutrino and GW in the
post merger. Secondly, the merger remnant possesses a disc with very few mass but
reasonable amount of angular momentum, due to the fact matter move at Keplerian
angular velocity in the disc. Considering these uncertainties, a more detailed and
self-consistent analysis has been carried out [40].
This new analysis is based only on laws of conservation, i.e., conservation of
rest mass, energy and angular momentum. Neutrino, post-merger GW radiation as
well as the remnant disc are all taken into account. The laws of conservation reads
explicitly:
Mb,0 = Mb, f + Meje + Mout ,
Mg,0 = Mg, f + E ν + E gw,i + E gw,p + Meje + Mout , (3.5)
J0 = J f + Jν + Jgw,p + Jeje + Jout ,

in which Mb,0 and Mg,0 are the initial baryonic mass and gravitational mass of the
system and J0 is the angular momentum left in the remnant right after merger. Meje
and Mout , Jeje and Jout are the mass, angular momentum of the ejecta and disc,
respectively. E ν and Jν are the energy and angular momentum loss due to neutrino
emission from the hot remnant, with E gw,p and Jgw,p accounting for the post-merger
GW radiation. Mb, f , Mg, f and J f are the baryonic mass, gravitational mass and
angular momentum of the remnant at the time of collapse to BH.
Among the 15 variables, the initial gravitational mass Mg,0 is determined by the
observation. For instance, for the case of GW170817, Mg,0 is 2.74 M according to
the inspiral GW signal. Once one EoS model is given, Mb,0 will also be fixed by
solving TOV equation. J0 and E gw,i could be determined by performing numerical
relativity simulations for the inspiral of various binary parameters and with the given
EoS. The mass of the ejecta and disc Meje + Mout could be constrained from observa-
tion of the EM counterparts. Once we have input a value of Meje + Mout according to
3.2 A More Consistent Constraint on NS MTOV 43

3.4

3.2

3.0
M [M ]

2.8

2.6

2.4

2.2

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
J

Fig. 3.2 An example of how to relate Mg, f and J f to Mb, f which could be solved from the conser-
vation of baryonic mass. The EoS model shown in this example is EoS-9 in [40]. By constructing
uniformly rotating solutions with this EoS model with various central densities and axis ratios, we
could obtain all the marginally stable solutions. The relation between baryonic mass and angular
momentum of the marginally stable solutions are shown by the top dashed line, with the bottom
solid line showing the relation between gravitational mass and angular momentum. For any given
baryonic mass (for example, the blue dotted horizontal line in the figure), the angular momentum
can be uniquely obtained and with it, the gravitational mass could also be obtained (with the vertical
dotted line). G = c = M = 1 unit is assumed to make this plot

the observations, Mb, f will then be solved from the conservation of baryonic mass.
Noticing that Mb, f is the baryonic mass of the remnant at the onset of collapse to
BH, i.e., it’s the baryonic mass of a turning point solution. We could then construct
uniformly rotating NS solutions and find out Mg, f and J f which corresponds to the
solution that has baryonic mass of Mb, f (details of examples are shown in Fig. 3.2).
Now the remaining unknown quantities are E gw,p , Jgw,p , E ν , Jν and Jeje + Jout .
It’s worth noting that these variables are not totally independent. The energy and
angular momentum loss of neutrino and GW emission are related by

Jν ≈ (2/3)c−2 RMNS
2
E ν
E gw,p (3.6)
Jgw,p ≈ ,
πf

in which RMNS is the radius of the remnant NSs,  is the angular velocity of the
remnant and f is the frequency of the GW radiation. The angular momentum carried
away by the ejecta and disc is also related to the ejecta and disc mass as
44 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

Jout ≈ Mout G MMNS Rout
 (3.7)
Jeje ≈ Meje G MMNS Reje .

Therefore, once we have input a value for Meje + Mout , there are only 2 degrees of
freedom left in the equation system, which is E ν and E gw,p and we could solve them
from the conservation of energy and angular momentum.
It’s worth noting that the efficiency in dissipating energy and angular momentum
is different for neutrino and GW emission. GW emission is most efficient in radiat-
ing angular momentum away without losing too much mass. Therefore, if the TOV
maximum mass for the given EoS is large and we have to dissipate more angular
momentum for the remnant to collapse, the required amount of E gw,p will be large
and E ν will be less, qualitatively. Nevertheless, there is an upper limit for accessi-
ble E gw,p , which is related to the initial kinetic energy of the remnant and roughly
0.125 M according to numerical simulations. Moreover, neither E ν nor E gw,p should
be negative. This allows us to do a consistency check for any EoS models, by solving
E ν and E gw,p with the conservation laws and see whether they are too large or too
small. By performing such a consistency check, we have found that the remnant
actually collapses with less angular momentum than JKep for various of EoS models
(c.f. Fig. 3.3). Hence the possible TOV maximum mass is found to be in a larger
range between 2.10–2.35 M .

3.3 Uniformly Rotating Strange Stars

Constructing uniformly rotating NS solutions is important for us to carry out the

consistency check mentioned in the previous section. Considering the fact that strange
stars have a finite surface density which will significantly change the structure of the
rotating star solution, we have also calculated solutions of rotating strange stars
to better interpret the observations. Here we will introduce the methods for the
calculation and our results.
When considering rigid rotation, the hydrostatic equilibrium equation could be
simplified as
h
= const, (3.8)
ut

in which u t is determined by the normalization of 4-velocity

1
ut =  , (3.9)
α 2 − ωi ωi

and ωi = β i + φ i .
In the cocal code, the radius of the star in the positive x direction (R0 ) is defined to
be 1. In another word, all the physical quantities and differential operators in the code
3.3 Uniformly Rotating Strange Stars 45

2.8

2.6

2.4

2.2
M [M ]

2.0

1.8

1.6

1.4

1.2
0.00100 0.00125 0.00150 0.00175 0.00200 0.00225 0.00250 0.00275
ρc

Fig. 3.3 The result of our analysis on the model EoS-9 in [40]. The bottom black curve is the mass
and central density relation of the TOV solutions, i.e., solutions with J = 0 and the top red curve is
the relation at the mass shedding limit. The green curve and dots are the marginally stable solutions.
We denote the possible positions where the remnant NS collapse to BH for the case of GW170817
by solid green curve. As can be seen, the remnant collapses to BH much below the Keplerian limit.
Hence the TOV maximum mass will be significantly underestimated if one assumes the remnant
collapse to BH at the Keplerian limit (namely, at which the mass of the remnant is 1.2 times of
TOV maximum mass where as the true ratio is much smaller than 1.2). G = c = M = 1 unit is
assumed to make this plot

are scaled with R0 . Therefore, there are indeed 3 stellar variables for determining
the solution with Eq. (3.8): the angular velocity , R0 as well as the constant in the
right hand side.
Noticing that Eq. (3.8) needs to be satisfied at any point inside the star, we can
then choose 3 special points in the star. Requiring Eq. (3.8) to hold for those 3 points
then becomes an algebraic equation system for 3 unknown variables, which we can
approach the solution with Newton-Rapson methods. In practice, we have chosen
the center of the star, the surface of the star on the positive x axis and z axis. The
hydrodynamic quantities (specific enthalpy in this case) is then given by the central
value and the surface value (which is h = 1 for NSs but different for strange star
case). State differently, the solution of a uniformly rotating compact star, will be
uniquely determined by the central density and its axis ratio Rz /Rx .
Equation(3.8) contains spacetime metric as well. For solving the structure of a
rotating strange star, we have to first input a solution which has similar axis ratio
and central density as our target configuration. Then we have to solve Eqs. (1.7) to
(1.9) as well as Eq. (3.8) iteratively with the new boundary condition (i.e., the target
central density and axis ratio) until the solution converges (in practice, we solve
until the relative difference of fluid and metric variables between 2 iterations is less
than 10−6 ).
46 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

To explore the properties of turning point solutions, we have applied the following
procedure: (1) build TOV solutions for various central densities (2) starting from
TOV solutions, solve initial data for rotating solutions with axis ratio Rz /Rx =
(N − 1)/N , in which N is the total number of grid points in positive x direction inside
the star. This is the slowest rotating solutions one can obtain in such a resolution (3)
starting from the solution obtained in the previous step and decrease the axis ratio
to obtain a solution with slightly smaller axis ratio (4) repeat step (3) until reaching
the mass shedding limit. Such a procedure is illustrated in Fig. 3.4, in which we have
constructed roughly 800 solutions with 24 different central densities to cover the
parameter space and try to figure out a rough range of the central density for turning
point solutions.
As mentioned before, turning points are the maximum mass solutions for con-
stant angular momentum sequences. Practically we can only construct solutions with
constant axis ratios rather than constant angular momentum. In principle, if we can
increase our spatial resolution as much as we want, we can always construct solu-
tions with angular momentum as close as the target value. Nevertheless, such high
spatial resolution is not affordable in real calculations. In practice, we have to do
interpolations to acquire the properties of the solution with the angular momentum
we want. After interpolating for all the different central density sequences, we could
then try to figure out the maximum mass solution along the interpolated constant
angular momentum solutions. In order to better resolve the parameter space near the
turning point solutions, we first figure out the central density range1 of all the turning
points with different angular momentum. Then another 24 central density sequences
covering only the turning point central density range is calculated again.
In addition to the difficulty of constructing solution with certain angular momen-
tum, there is another inconvenience due to the finite spatial resolution, which is how
to determine the mass shedding limit accurately. In real calculation what happens
near the mass shedding limit is that, we can still obtain a stable axisymmetric rotating
solution at axis ratio Rz /Rx = (N − K )/N (N and K are positive integers), whereas
no solution could be found at axis ratio Rz /Rx = (N − K − 1)/N for the same cen-
tral density. This indicates that the mass shedding limit for this central density has
an axis ratio between (N − K )/N and (N − K − 1)/N . If we simply take the last
solution obtained (i.e., the solution with Rz /Rx = (N − K )/N ), the maximum mass
and angular momentum for this central density will be underestimated. As a result,
MKep and JKep will also be underestimated.
To resolve this problem, let’s consider the definition for mass shedding limit:
the star rotates so fast that gravity could no longer bound the matter on the sur-
face of the star. For axisymmetric rotating stars, mass shedding most easily happens
on the equator of the star. In another word, for fixed central density, equatorial
radius increases as axis ratio decreases and the gradient of the enthalpy along the
radial direction ( ddhx |z=0 ) is also decreasing near the equator. For rotating stars reach-
ing mass shedding limit, this gradient should approach zero, as the matter on the

1 Asangular momentum increases, the turning points are achieved at smaller and smaller central
density.
3.3 Uniformly Rotating Strange Stars 47

Fig. 3.4 An illustration of the construction of the rotating strange star sequences for MIT bag model.
There are 24 TOV solutions with different central densities, labeled in purple boxes. From each TOV
solution, the axis ratio is gradually decreased to obtain solutions with increasing angular momentum
(green dots along the axis of J ) until the mass shedding limit is reached. Solutions labeled by blue
stars are the last solutions we could obtain along a sequence. More precise quantities of the mass
shedding limit need to be identified by extrapolation (c.f. the discussion in the text). J and ADM
mass are given in G = c = M = 1 units

equator becomes unbound and could extend to infinity. Therefore, one possible way
to better determine the mass shedding limit is to record the value of ddhx |z=0 along one
fixed central density sequence. After obtaining the last solution along the sequence,
extrapolating the solution to where ddhx |z=0 = 0 and use the extrapolated quantities as
estimation of the mass shedding limit quantities.
Following such a procedure and analysis, we have obtained the turning points
solutions for uniformly rotating strange stars for both MIT bag model and strangeon
star model. According to the results (shown in Fig. 3.5), strangeon star could reach as
high as 4.5 M supported only by rigid rotation. According to the mass measurement
of all the know binary compact star system (including GW170817) [23], this MKep
for strangeon star is far more than the total mass of currently known binary compact
stars. Even in the case that the two most massive pulsars [3, 15] merge with each
other, the total gravitational mass is still smaller than MKep of strangeon star. In the
case of MIT bag model, the maximum mass of the mass shedding limit is also beyond
3 M . As a conclusion, in the case of a binary strange star merger, the remnant will
mostly likely be a long-lived strange star.
The figure also clearly shows that the universal relation pointed out by [11]
for rigidly rotating NSs cannot be extended to strange stars according to our cal-
culation results. Even for MIT bag model star and strangeon star, the relation
between normalized critical mass and angular momentum doesn’t seem to be similar.
48 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

1.4 MIT
Strangeon Star
NS
1.3
Mcrit/MTOV

1.2

1.1

1.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
J/Jkep

Fig. 3.5 Relationship between normalized critical mass and angular momentum of rotating compact
stars. We have employed the normalization according to [11], e.g., critical mass is normalized by
TOV maximum mass and angular momentum by Keperian angular momentum. The black line
stands for the universal relation for NS EoSs [11], blue line for strangeon star model and red for
MIT bag model. Note that MTOV is 3.325 M for strangeon star model and 2.217 MTOV for MIT
bag model

Specifically, with rigid rotation, the maximum mass of strange stars could be
enhanced by about 30–40%, while it’s only 20% for NSs. Strange star remnant
will take much longer time for angular momentum dissipation before collapsing to
BH. As a result, strange star might be a candidate in the magnetar central engine
model for sGRB, with the spin down power of the strange star remnant being a good
explanation for observations such as the X-ray plateaus following GRBs [26].
A natural question to ask is why rotating strange stars are so different from NSs. As
mentioned before, strange star is self-bound by strong interaction hence more difficult
to reach mass shedding. Mathematically speaking, the nature of solving configuration
of rotating compact stars is solving the differential equation system mentioned in the
introduction. Although in p − ρ diagram, there is no much difference between a
strange star EoS and a NS one, the boundary condition is indeed very different due
to the finite surface density of strange stars. Even in the case of strangeon star and
MIT bag model star, there is a factor of ∼2 difference in surface density, which
results in the different Mcrit − J relationship. This difference between strange stars
and NSs, will be further explained again in the following sections.
3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars 49

3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars

3.4.1 Rotation Law

I have introduced the results about uniformly rotating NSs and strange stars and how
to interpret the observations with the results in the previous sections. Nevertheless,
it’s essential to learn about the structures of differentially rotating compact stars if
we would like to consider more realistically the fate of the merger remnant. On one
hand, as mentioned before, GW170817 most likely result in a differentially rotating
hypermassive remnant. On the other hand, it’s worth noting that even if the mass of
the remnant is smaller compared with the mass shedding limit for rigid rotation, the
remnant still possesses certain degree of differential rotation [4, 36, 38].
As we have discussed in the previous section, we can not predict or impose
the angular velocity or angular momentum of the solution before solving it, not
to mention imposing a differential rotation profile (i.e.,  = (r )) as a condition
for solving
 differentially rotating star in GR. Recall that we have assumed the term
exp j ()d in Eq. (1.26) for uniformly rotating stars. If we give up this assumption
and treat j () = u t u φ as a more general function of . Then we can still solve all
the equations and obtain a solution with non-constant  inside the star. Therefore,
this choice of j = j () is called rotation law. In real calculations, a one-parameter
differential rotation law (which is called KEH law or j-constant law) [24, 25] is
widely used:

j () = A2 (c − ), (3.10)

for constructing differentially rotating compact stars. This differential rotation law
will result in a monotonic angular velocity distribution with respect to cylindrical
radius with c being the angular velocity on the rotation axis and the only parameter
A determining the degree of differential rotation. A more commonly mentioned
version of this parameter is the normalized  = A/re , in which re is the equatorial
radius of the star.
It’s worth noting that even with the rotation law given, we still couldn’t predict
the angular velocity profile before actually solving the configuration. In particular,
even with the j-constant rotation law and with exactly the same choice of A, for
different EoS models or different central densities or different axis ratio, the angular
velocity profile will be different. Nevertheless, we could still infer qualitatively, that
the rotation profile approaches rigid rotation in the case of A approaching infinity,
whereas a smaller A indicates that the angular velocity change from the center to the
equator will be more dramatic. The actual differential rotation law implemented in
cocal is more general [45]:
50 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

c q
j () = A2 [( ) − 1], (3.11)


which will reduce to the j-constant law in the case of q = 1.2

However, those rotation laws are just a manual input which doesn’t come from any
astrophysical motivations or simulation results. In fact, it has been known for long
time that such a differential rotation profile is unrealistic according to numerical
simulations of BNSs mergers. In the equatorial plane, simulation results suggest
that the angular velocity increases from a nonzero finite value on the rotational axis
towards a maximum value inside the star and then decreases to a minimum [8, 16,
20–22, 37].
It should be kept in mind that for such a nonmonotonic profile, j () becomes
a multi-valued function. Hence the integrability condition needs to be written as
 = ( j) instead if one wants to employ such a profile in numerical calculations.
As described in [44], such a differential rotation profile is implemented in cocal by
the following approach:

1 + ( j/B 2 c ) p
 = c , (3.12)
1 + ( j/A2 c )q+ p

in which A, B, p, and q are parameters controlling the differential rotation profile.

The choice of ( p, q) is (1,3) in the calculations introduced in this section. To apply
this rotation law, rather than fixing A and B, we choose to fix the ratio between the
maximum angular velocity and the central angular velocity (m /c ) as well as the
equatorial angular velocity with respect to the central (eq /c ) and then root-finding
for the corresponding A and B iteratively for each solution [44].

3.4.2 Critical Mass of Differentially Rotating Strange Stars

Differentially rotating NSs could reach much higher maximum mass compared with
uniformly rotating case, thus called HMNS. According to previous investigations [5,
10, 46], the maximum mass of HMNS increases as the differential rotation degree
increases as long as the rotational profile is not extreme. Precisely speaking, in
the case of j-constant differential rotation law, Mmax increases as  decreases for
 ∈ (∼ 1, ∞). For the case that  becomes smaller than 1, the maximum mass will
begin to decrease. The maximum mass of a HMNS could be as high as 2.5 times of
the non-rotating maximum mass MTOV [5, 17].
As first demonstrated by [2], there are 4 different types of configurations of dif-
ferentially rotating neutron stars. For small differential rotation degree (i.e., large Â),
differentially rotating star reaches mass shedding limit when the star is still ellip-

2 Note that if we change the rotation law simply to j () = A2 [1 − ( c )q ], we could have a
monotonically increasing angular velocity profile from the center to the equator of the star. Such a
rotation law is used and tested in Fig. 3.10.
3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars 51

soidal (type A). For moderate differential rotation rates, the so-called type B and
C configurations coexist, for which the maximum mass is achieved when the star
becomes toroidal (Rz /Rx = 0). The difference between type B and C is that type C
solution could be smoothly achieved by adding angular momentum to a spherical star
whereas type B is could not and terminates at Rz /Rx < 1 when angular momentum
is reduced. Note for the case that the differential rotation rate is modest, there is
also type D solutions coexists with type C solution (similar to the case that type B
co-exists with type A), which have two mass shedding limit but could never reach
toroidal or spherical configuration by adjusting the angular momentum of it.
To investigate the maximum mass of a hypermassive strange star (HMSS) with
the j-constant law, we have calculated HMSS models for both MIT bag model and
strangeon star model with  ranging from 0.6 to 6. This will allow us to make a
direct comparison with the HMNS models. The qualitative scenario of HMSSs with
j-const law is similar to the HMNS case, but the quantitative dependence on the Â
parameter is quite different. It has been found that only type C solutions exist for
most of the  parameter range we considered for strange stars. In another word,
type A and B solutions disappear at much smaller differential rotation rate (i.e.,
much larger Â) for strange stars compared with NSs. Similar behavior is found in
terms of the maximum mass: reducing  from infinity leads to an increasing in the
maximum mass, up until  ∼ 5 for strangeon star model and ∼3 for MIT bag model
while the corresponding value for HMNSs is around 1 for various EoS models. As
differential rotation degree is further increased, the maximum mass begins to drop.
Several selected results with  ranging from 2 to 0.5 in Figs. 3.6 and 3.7 to better
illustrate the difference compared with HMNSs.
Compared with the results of a simple polytropic NSs with  = 2 shown in Fig. 1
in Baumgarte et al. [5] where the maximum mass of HMNSs increases dramatically
when  is decreased from 2.0 to 1.0, the maximum mass of HMSSs decreases sig-
nificantly in the same range of Â. In another word, Â = 2.0 is a moderate differential
rotation degree for NSs, but it represents a very strong differential rotation for SSs.
A way to understand this is related to the self-bound nature of strange stars. The
surface densities of strange stars are at the same order of magnitude as the central
density. In this sense, strange stars are very similar to an incompressible star. In the
case of NSs, varying the angular velocity on the surface, where the density of matter
is approaching zero, has very small effect. On the other hand, for strange stars the
configuration of the star is affected much more by differential rotation. Similar to the
case of rigid rotation, we could also understand the difference between differentially
rotating MIT bag model stars and strangeon stars according to the difference in the
surface density. As can be seen in Table 3.1, strangeon star model is more similar to
an incompressible star as the ratio between ρc and ρs is smaller than MIT bag model
for the TOV maximum mass solution. Consequently, differential rotation will have
more impact in strangeon star model.
Interestingly, differentially rotating strange stars could even have a smaller maxi-
mum mass than the rigid rotation solutions with modest differential rotation degree.3

3 This can also happen for NSs, but with unrealistically large differential rotation rate, e.g. Â ∼ 0.1.
52 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

4
M [M ]

mass shedding
 = 1.0 rigid rotation
2
 = 1.8 TOV
 = 5.0
1
0.0010 0.0015
ρmax

Fig. 3.6 Mass versus maximum density diagram for strangeon star model for several selected
models. The black curve is for the non-rotating case (TOV solution) while the red curve is for the
mass shedding limit for uniformly rotating axisymmetric case. Top yellow curve shows the largest
possible critical mass we obtained in the calculation, which happens for  = 5.0. Green curve shows
the case when the critical mass is close to the mass shedding limit of uniformly rotating case with
 = 1.8 and blue curve with  = 1.0. Note that due to the existence of type C solutions mentioned
in Sect. 3.4.4, the maximum mass of differentially rotating case could probably be found for the
case that the central density is not the maximum density inside star. For the case that  = 5.0, type
A and type C solutions co-exist. For all the other models, there exists only type C solutions. We
label the part where only type A solutions exist by dashed curve. This figure is adopted from [48]

According to the results in the figures, this happens at  ∼ 1.8 and ∼ 0.7 for
strangeon star and MIT bag model, respectively. This is another evidence that
strangeon star is affected more by differential rotation (due to larger incompress-
ibility) compared with MIT bag model. Two facts can account for this very interest-
ing result: firstly, due to the reasons mentioned above, the maximum mass of strange
stars drops at larger  and more rapidly as differential rotation is enhanced in strange
stars; secondly, the supra-massive mass shedding limit for strange stars are already
much larger than NSs given the same MTOV . The angular velocity profile for the case
when the maximum mass becomes comparable to mass shedding limit of the rigid
rotation case is shown in Fig. 3.8. A stronger physical differential rotation is indeed
needed for MIT bag model compared with strangeon star model, to result in a similar
drop in maximum mass.
In addition to j-constant law, we have also calculated more realistic configurations
for strange star models with the rotation law described by Eq. (3.12). The results are
shown in Fig. 3.9. We have fixed the target rotation profile with m /c = 1.1 and
eq /c = 0.5. As can be seen from the comparison with j-constant law (dashed
3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars 53

4
M [M ]

1
0.0010 0.0015 0.0020 0.0025 0.0030
ρmax

Fig. 3.7 Mass versus maximum density diagram for MIT bag model SSs. The yellow curve on the
top which corresponds to the maximum possible mass case for MIT bag model is with  = 3.0.
And the blue curve is for  = 0.8 which has the smallest possible critical mass comparable to the
uniformly rotating mass shedding limit. This figure is adopted from [48]

Strangeon star
0.2 MIT bag model
Ω

0.1

0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
x/R

Fig. 3.8 The angular velocity profile for strangeon star (blue) and MIT bag model (green) when the
maximum mass becomes close to their rigidly rotating mass shedding limit. This means  = 1.8
for strangeon star model and  = 0.8 for MIT bag model. This figure is adopted from [48]
54 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

Table 3.1 Surface density (ρsurf ), TOV maximum mass (MTOV ), central density for the TOV
maximum mass solution (ρc,TOV ) for the two EOSs in this work. The densities are in units of nuclear
saturation density (ρ0 = 2.67 × 1014 g cm−3 ). We also show the radius and tidal deformability for
a 1.4 solar mass star for both EoSs
EOS ρsurf MTOV ρc,TOV R1.4 [km] 1.4
MIT 1.4ρ0 2.217 5.42ρ0 11.814 792.8
Strangeon 2ρ0 3.325 4.03ρ0 10.459 381.9

lines), the new differential law results in larger maximum mass. The smaller the axis
ratio, (namely, the faster the rotation), the larger the difference in maximum mass
between the two cases.
Nevertheless, as can be seen in Table 3.2, to reach a higher maximum mass with
the more realistic rotation profile, larger angular momentum and kinetic energy are
needed as a trade off. During a merger event, the actual angular momentum and
kinetic energy left in the remnant is determined by the binary dynamics which should
be independent of the rotation law. Hence, only comparing the mass shedding limit
and the remnant mass might not be sufficient to make astrophysical interpretations.
According to the studies in this chapter, the remnant could not obtain sufficient
angular momentum to reach the theoretical maximum mass in most of the cases.
Hence, investigating the relationship between the maximum mass for a given angular
momentum will be more useful.

3.4.3 Critical Mass of Constant Angular Momentum

Sequences

In the previous section, we have introduced the turning point theorem [18] for secular
stability criterion for uniformly rotating compact stars. In the case of differentially
rotating compact stars, there is no analytical proof of such a theorem but similar
stability condition is found by performing numerical simulations Weih et al. [46].
Thus the turning-point criterion can be used as a first approximation for determining
the critical mass (Mcrit ) of a constant angular momentum sequence.4
Previuos studies show that for HMNSs, the relationship between Mcrit and J
is almost independent of Â. Moreover, with proper normalization, dimensionless
critical mass and angular momentum is found to follow a universal relation of NSs
with various EoS models [10]. State differently, the reason that a HMNS can reach
a larger maximum mass than uniformly rotating ones is merely because a HMNS
can contain larger angular momentum. The fact that the maximum mass of HMSS
also correlates positively with angular momentum motivates an investigation on the

∂M
∂ρmax | J = 0.
4 Similar to the case of uniform rotation, we find Mcrit by finding the point where
3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars 55

4
M [M ]

3
Rz /Rx = 0.25
Rz /Rx = 0.5
Rz /Rx = 0.75

2
0.0010 0.0015
ρ max

Fig. 3.9 Mass versus maximum density diagram for strangeon star model. The black and red
curves are for TOV and mass shedding limit of rigid rotation, respectively. The other curves are
for differentially rotating solutions with different axis ratios (0.25, 0.5 and 0.75) with j-const law
and  = 1.0 (dashed curves) and with the new rotation law Eq. (3.12) (solid curves). This figure is
adopted from [48]

relation for HMSSs.5 In addition, with the ability to construct configurations with
more realistic differential rotation profile, we can also extend the study to check
whether this relation is preserved even when more complicated and realistic rotation
law is considered.
With j-constant law, we have considered the cases with  = 1.0 and 3.0 for
both strange star EoSs and studied the relation between Mcrit and J . The results are
shown in Fig. 3.11, where the rigid rotation case (solid blue line) and the differential
rotation case (colored dots) are compared. Even though  = 1.0 already represents
a physically strong differention rotation for strange stars as explained in the previous
section, the deviation from the rigid rotation case (which is  → ∞) is small for
both EoSs. The relative difference as defined in [10] satisfies

f uni − f Â
≤ 2.0% ∀ Â > 1.0, (3.13)
f uni

for strange stars, in which f uni denotes Mcrit for a certain J for uniform rotation case
and f  for j-constant rotation law case. More interestingly, as can be seen from both

5 Although in [10] it has been shown that this universal relation cannot be extended even for the
case of uniformly rotating SSs, it’s still quite useful to verify whether the Â-insensitive relationship
still holds for strange stars.
56 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

2.0

1.8

1.6
M [M ]

1.4

1.2

1.0
0.0000 0.0005 0.0010 0.0015 0.0020 0.0025 0.0030 0.0035 0.0040
ρc

Fig. 3.10 Mass versus central density diagram for  = 2, K = 100 NS EoS. The green curve and
red curve are for TOV sequence and the mass shedding limit of rigid rotation case. Black curve
shows the relation for uniformly rotating case with a specific angular momentum (J = 1.17) and
blue curve is the relation for a monotonically increasing differential rotation profile case with the
same angular momentum. As can be seen from the figure, the critical mass for this type of differential
rotation profile is almost identical with the rigid rotation case

panels of Fig. 3.11, the solutions with the new rotation law (denoted by filled square
and star symbols) are also found to follow this relation. Additionally, we have also
applied a monotonically increasing differential rotation law for NS models and the
result is positive for NSs as well (c.f. Fig. 3.10). This result indicates that the critical
mass dependents mainly on the angular momentum contained in the rotating star, but
not on how these angular momentum are distributed. Hence, the outcome of a binary
merger event can be inferred without having to know the details of the rotational
profile in the merger remnant.

3.4.4 Configuration Types of Differentially Rotating Strange

Star

For rigidly rotating relativistic stars or differentially rotating stars with weak differ-
ential rotation, the solution sequences terminate at the so-called mass-shedding limit
with a finite axis ratio Rz /Rx when the star is still ellipsoidal. With relatively strong
differential rotation degrees and small axis ratio, the star no longer looks ellipsoidal
in the x–z plane and the maximum density migrates from the center to a ring with
finite radius in the star. Solutions of this type (classified as type C solution) could be
3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars 57

1.30

1.25

1.20
Mcrit/MTOV

1.15

1.10

1.05

1.00

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2

J/JKep

1.8

1.6
Mcrit/MrmT OV

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00

J/JKep

Fig. 3.11 The relationship between critical mass Mcrit normalized by MTOV and angular momentum
J normalized by JKep for strangeon stars (upper panel) and MIT bag model stars (lower panel).
Both rigid rotating case (solid blue line) and differentially rotating case (green dots for  = 3.0
and red dots for  = 1.0) are shown. The 1% error range for the relationship of the rigid rotating
case is shown in dashed blue lines for comparison purpose. We have also labeled the results from
the new differential rotation law with black markers
58 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

1.0

0.5
z/Rx

0.0

−0.5

−1.0

−1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

x/Rx

ρ/ρc
Ω/Ωc
1.0
Q/Qc

0.5
−1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
x/R

Fig. 3.12 Stellar surface and rest mass density contour of a differentially rotating strangeon star
(upper panel) and its density and angular velocity profile (lower panel). Details about the solution
shown in this figure can be found in the ‘DR-LX-4’ model in Table 3.2. This figure is adopted
from [48]
3.4 Maximum Mass of Rotating Strange Stars 59

found even for vanishing z axis. Identifying such solutions for HMSSs will help us
better understand the influence of a certain differential rotation rate.
For NSs models, this transit comes to exist at   1.0 [19] with more precise
value dependent on the central density of the solution. As a comparison, properties
of selected type C solutions for differentially rotating SSs are listed in Table 3.2.
It turns out that type C emerges at much larger  for strange stars. For both MIT
bag model and strangeon star model, toroidal solutions with Rz /Rx = 0 is already
found for the entire central density range for  = 3.0. This is another evidence that
differential rotation has more impacts on structure of strange stars. Apart from the
toroidal limit, we have also tried to understand the influence of differential rotation by
looking at the onset of the transit to toroidal class. This could be done by searching
for the first solution in a sequence whose maximum density is larger than central
density, or identically the first solution the surface of which is no longer elliptical in
x–z plane. For solutions with  = 1.0, such transition occurs at axis ratio very close
to 1.0 (in another word, with very little the angular momentum). Such a solution is
listed as ‘DR-LX-3’ in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2 Quantities of selected solutions for rotating strange stars. In the above, R x is the coordi-
nate (proper) equatorial radius and Rz /Rx is the ratio of coordinate (proper) polar to the equatorial
radius. ρc is the central rest-mass density and ρmax the maximum rest-mass density in the star.
c , MADM , J , and T /|W | are the central angular velocity, Arnowit-Deset-Misner mass, angular
momentum and ratio between kinetic energy and gravitational potential. Definitions can be found
in the Appendix of [45]. In this table, ‘UR-SS’ and ‘UR-MIT’ labels the maximum mass solution of
uniformly rotating strangeon star and MIT bag model star, respectively. ‘DR-SS-1’ and ‘DR-MIT-1’
are the maximum mass solutions for differentially rotating strangeon star and MIT bag model star
with  = 1 j-const law. ‘DR-SS-2’ is the maximum mass solution for the new differential rotation
law with Rz /Rx = 0.25 for the strangeon star model. ‘DR-SS-3’ and ‘DR-SS-4’ are two selected
type-C solutions with j-const law and the new differential rotation law, respectively. This table is
adopted from [48]
Model Rx Rz /R x ρc ρmax c MADM J T /|W |
UR-SS 4.82 0.53125 1.56 × 10−3 1.56 × 10−3 0.0603 4.39 16.4 0.222
(15.1) (0.584)
DR-SS-1 4.36 0.015625 8.68 × 10−4 1.51 × 10−3 0.382 3.78 10.3 0.183
(12.4) (0.0190)
DR-SS-2 4.07 0.25 1.20 × 10−3 1.40 × 10−3 0.110 4.49 17.6 0.290
(14.4) (0.295)
DR-SS-3 4.83 0.9375 1.51 × 10−3 1.51 × 10−3 0.0638 3.25 2.28 0.0135
(10.9) (0.947)
DR-SS-4 4.26 0.50 1.46 × 10−3 1.51 × 10−3 0.0945 3.92 11.9 0.203
(12.8) (0.553)
UR-MIT 8.23 0.484375 1.76 × 10−3 1.76 × 10−3 0.0433 3.17 8.56 0.198
(15.1) (0.523)
DR-MIT-1 6.79 0.015625 6.07 × 10−3 1.34 × 10−3 0.163 3.60 10.8 0.236
(13.9) (0.0172)
60 3 Axisymmetric Rotating Compact Stars

We have done similar analysis for the solutions with the new differential rotation
law to verify the influence of rotation laws on configuration of the solutions. We
manage to find toroidal solutions with vanishing z-axis for the low central density
sequence. For relatively large central density sequence, the root-finding for adopting
A and B parameter in the rotation law becomes numerically more difficult as axis
ratio decreases. Nevertheless, we can still try to identify the transition to toroidal
class by looking at the stellar surface and density profile of the star. The result shows
that for axis ratio Rz /Rx = 0.5, the onset of the transition already occurs for all the
central density range (an example can be found in Fig. 3.12). Hence, we conclude
that type C toroidal class should be a common configuration differentially rotating
relativistic stars with strong differential rotation degree.

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Chapter 4
Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars

In the previous Chapter, we have discussed about the similarities and differences
between uniformly rotating and differentially rotating neutron stars and strange stars,
with axisymmetry. Nevertheless, in reality, due to the high mass, kinetic energy as
well as strong magnetic fields of the merger remnant, the axisymmetry might be
easily broken. Under such conditions, the remnant might be significant gravitational
wave sources, which could provide us valuable insights about the internal structure
of the massive remnant as well as many microscopic properties of matter at such
density. In general, the following mechanisms could lead to a non-axisymmetirc
merger remnant:
• The magnetic field of the remnant will be significantly enhanced by differen-
tial rotation and toroidal components could develop. If the energy density of the
enhanced magnetic field becomes comparable to that of the compact star matter
(which normally requires the magnetic field strength to be at least as large as
1016 G), the massive remnant will be deformed by the magnetic field. If the spin
axis and magnetic axis are not aligned, the remnant will no longer be axisymmetric
and become a gravitational wave radiator [8].
• For rapidly rotating compact stars, oscillation modes with Coriolis force as restor-
ing force (r-mode) might be excited [1, 10]. In addition, for differentially rotating
relativistic star with large differential rotation rates, dynamical instabilities which
will lead to non-axisymmetric deformations of the star may easily be triggered
[5, 25–27].
• For rotating stars with larger kinetic energy to potential energy ratio (T /|W | >
0.1375 in Newtonian case), the star will spontaneously break its axisymmetry,
evolve into triaxial configuration which has lower energy than axisymmetric case
by viscous and GW dissipation [6, 24]. If reasonable angular momentum is stored
in the vortexes in the star, then such configurations are called Dedekind ellipsoid,
otherwise it is called Jacobian ellipsoid. The evolution and GW emission properties
of those two types of configurations are quite different from each other [18].

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 63

E. Zhou, Studying Compact Star Equation of States with General
Relativistic Initial Data Approach, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4151-3_4
64 4 Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars

In this chapter, we will focus on the Jacobian ellipsoid configuration of strange

stars. R-mode instability could be suppressed significantly by viscosity and might
not be important for strangeon star which is suggested to be in solid state [32]. For
calculation of Dedekind ellipsoid, there is no helical symmetry for the fluid and we
can no more use Eq. (1.26) as hydrostatic equilibrium equation. We will leave the
calculation of Dedekind ellipsoid for a future study.

4.1 Background

Equilibrium configurations of self-gravitating, uniformly rotating incompressible

stars have been studied systematically in Newtonian scheme already by
Chandrasekhar in 1969 [7]. As mentioned above, depending on the rotational kinetic
energy, the most stable configuration could be either axisymmetric, i.e. Maclaurin
ellipsoids, or non-axisymmetic, such as Jacobian or Dedekind ellipsoids which are
triaxial. For compact stars which we are interested in, studies in full general rela-
tivistic scheme is needed. Relativistic rotating compact stars have also been studied
for long [9, 21].
It has been found that rotating NSs will spontaneously break its axisymmetry if
T /|W | ratio exceeds a critical value. Such high value of T /|W | is achievable by a
newly born compact star during a core collapse supernova, a NS spun up by accretion
or the remnant of a BNS merger event [2, 19, 22, 23, 30, 31]. Rotating relativistic
stars with such a configuration might be very important GW sources and worth more
detailed studies.
Quasi-equilibrium configurations of triaxially rotating NSs have been studied
in full GR by constructing initial data [15, 29]. The dynamical stability properties
have also been investigated in [28] by evolving such initial data. Nevertheless, the
bifurcation from axisymmetric to triaxial configurations happens very close to mass
shedding limit for uniformly rotating NSs. Particularly, the larger the compactness
of the NS, the larger T /|W | value is required for the bifurcation. As a consequence,
for soft EoS models and with large compactness, the triaxial sequence could totally
vanish as the required T /|W | is too large to be reached even at mass shedding limit
[3, 4, 14, 16, 17].
Moreover, the existence of supramassive triaxial NSs (namely, triaxially rotating
NSs with mass larger than MTOV ) has also been discussed in [29]. The result confirms
the existence of such solutions, but only for extremely stiff EoS models. Considering
that the total mass of all the currently known BNS systems are all larger than TTOV ,
it’s then also with doubt whether such configurations could really play an important
role in real astrophysical scenarios with realistic EoS models.
Differently from NSs, rotating strange star has larger moment of inertia hence
larger kinetic energy, due to the finite surface density [12, 13]. Therefore, triaxial bar
mode instability could play a more important role for rotating strange stars. This is
verified by previous studies for MIT bag model in full relativistic schemes [11]. In this
investigation, perturbations on lapse function are imposed on axisymmetric solutions
4.1 Background 65

of rotating strange stars and series of triaxial solutions are constructed accordingly to
see whether the perturbation is damped or grows. By such treatment, the onset points
of triaxial instability is identified. In this chapter, we will introduce our research on
triaxially rotating strange stars with both MIT bag model and strangeon star model
in a different approach with cocal code.

4.2 Constructing Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars

with COCAL

Differently from the methods in [11], we do not need to input perturbations on top of
axisymmetric solutions to induce triaxial deformation. Triaxial solutions will emerge
spontaneously at large enough T /|W |, although not exactly at the bifurcation point.
To find the entire triaxial sequence and to identify the quantities of the rotating strange
star at the bifurcation point, we have to following the procedure below:
(1) similar to the case mentioned in the previous chapter about constructing axisym-
metric uniformly rotating stars, we have to start from a TOV solution and reduce
the axis ratio Rz /Rx gradually. What is different from the previous case is that,
we no longer impose axisymmetry condition for metric and fluid variables after
solving the field equations and hydro equation in every iteration.
(2) when Rz /Rx is large (i.e., rotation is slow), the solution is still axisymmetric
although no symmetry condition is imposed in the calculation. Nevertheless,
when Rz /Rx is small enough, triaxial deformation is spontaneously triggered,
namely, R y becomes smaller than Rx .1 Such a configuration is energetically
favored than the axisymmetric solution.
(3) keep decreasing Rz /Rx ratio, R y /Rx ratio will also become smaller, which means
triaxial deformation becomes larger for faster rotation. We could reach the mass
shedding limit of triaxial sequence by decreasing axis ratio gradually.
(4) when we calculate axisymmetric solutions, the 3 points we choose to determine
, R0 and the constant in Eq. (3.8) are the center of the star, the surface of the star
on positive z-axis and x-axis. Once the mass shedding limit of triaxial solution
is achieved, we can choose the surface on positive y-axis instead of z-axis. By
doing so, we will be able to create solutions with desired R y /Rx ratio.
(5) take the mass shedding limit solution and increase R y /Rx towards 1.0 (which
is the bifurcation point) gradually to obtain the entire triaxial sequence and
quantities on the bifurcation point.
(6) take TOV solutions with another compactness and repeat the above steps to
investigate the influence of different compactness on triaxial solutions.

1 In principle, during such a spontaneous symmetry breaking, there should be no preferred direction

in the equatorial plane. However, we always define the longer axis to be x-axis for convenience of
the calculation.
66 4 Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars

Table 4.1 Quantities at the point of bifurcation of triaxial sequences from axisymmetric ones for
the two EoS considered. The compactness of the spherical star with the same rest mass C are the
model parameters. In the above, R x is the coordinate (proper) equatorial radius, and Rz /Rx is the
ratio of coordinate (proper) polar to the equatorial radius. c is the energy density at the center of
the compact star,  is the angular velocity. In the last three lines we report the bifurcation point
of simple polytropes with polytropic index n as computed in [15] for comparison. Note that we
have chosen appropriate values for κ such that the TOV maximum mass for those polytropic EoS
reach 2.5 M . To convert to geometric G = c = 1 or cgs units, use the fact that 1 = 1.477 km =
4.927 μs = 1.989 × 1033 g
EOS M/R Rx Rz /Rx c  MADM J T /|W |
MIT 0.1 7.021 0.5647 6.200 × 10−4 0.02808 0.6515 0.4580 0.1520
(8.077) (0.5693)
MIT 0.15 7.962 0.5565 6.811 × 10−4 0.02985 1.169 1.293 0.1609
(9.922) (0.5640)
MIT 0.2 8.415 0.5478 7.696 × 10−4 0.03199 1.731 2.649 0.1706
(11.43) (0.5590)
Strangeon 0.1 5.698 0.5644 9.144 × 10−4 0.03451 0.5312 0.3039 0.1518
(6.557) (0.5689)
Strangeon 0.15 6.515 0.5566 9.542 × 10−4 0.03630 0.9686 0.8850 0.1607
(8.130) (0.5639)
Strangeon 0.2 6.972 0.5469 9.977 × 10−4 0.03838 1.481 1.932 0.1715
(9.528) (0.5574)
n = 0.3 0.1 6.624 0.5634 9.221 × 10−4 0.03180 0.5841 0.3708 0.1507
(7.634) (0.5693)
n = 0.3 0.2 7.312 0.5394 1.243 × 10−3 0.03926 1.435 1.835 0.1688
(9.979) (0.5535)
n = 0.5 0.1 10.30 0.5461 5.153 × 10−4 0.02197 0.8416 0.7644 0.1493
(11.83) (0.5536)

We have calculated triaxial sequence for both MIT bag model and strangeon star
model with 3 different spherical compactness 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20. The quantities on
the bifurcation point of those cases are listed in Table 4.1 together with the results for
NSs in [15] as comparison. In Newtonian gravity, the bifurcation to triaxial sequence
happens at T /|W | = 0.1375. In GR cases, there will be correction related to the
compactness of the star, [11]:
   
T T
= + 0.126 C (1 + C) , (4.1)
|W | crit |W | crit,Newt

 
T
in which |W | crit,Newt
is the Newtonian value of 0.1375. According to the results
listed in the table, this relation is preserved with relative error smaller than 3%.
In Fig. 4.1, the angular velocity-eccentricity diagram is shown for the entire
axisymmetric sequence as well as the triaxial sequence for all the models we have
considered. One interesting feature is that once triaxial deformation is induced, the
4.2 Constructing Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars with cocal 67

0.07

0.06

0.05

0.04
ΩMADM

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.00
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
e

ML C = 0.1 JB C = 0.1
ML C = 0.15 JB C = 0.15
ML C = 0.2 JB C = 0.2

0.07

0.06

0.05

0.04
ΩMADM

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.00
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
e

ML C = 0.1 JB C = 0.1
ML C = 0.15 JB C = 0.15
ML C = 0.2 JB C = 0.2

Fig. 4.1 Plots of MADM versus eccentricity for strangeon star model (upper panel) and MIT
bag model (lower panel) sequences. Solid curves are axisymmetric solution sequences, and dashed
curves are triaxial solution sequences, that correspond to C = M/R = 0.2 (the top green curve),
0.15 (the middle red curve) and 0.1 (the bottom blue curve) respectively. Note that M is the spherical
ADM mass
68 4 Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars

angular velocity of the rotating star actually decreases as the star gains more angu-
lar momentum. This because the change in moment of inertia exceeds the change
in angular momentum in the triaxial sequence. This is also the reason why triaxial
solution is energetically favored. For fixed angular momentum, the kinetic energy is
given as E k = J 2 /2I , which decreases as moment of inertia I increases. For triaxial
configurations, the rate of decrease in kinetic energy exceeds the increase in potential
energy when I is increased by triaxial deformation, hence the total energy is smaller
than axisymmetric case.

4.3 Comparison with Triaxially Rotating NS

It has been mentioned that triaxial configurations might be more important for rotating
strange stars compared with NSs, due to the finite surface density of strange stars.
According to our results, there are indeed mainly three differences found:

(1) Strange stars have longer triaxial sequences than NSs. In another word, the
eccentricity is larger on the equatorial plane at the mass shedding limit of tri-
axial sequence for strange stars (hence R y /Rx is smaller as well). For instance,
according to [15], for NSs with spherical compactness 0.20, the triaxial defor-
mation is induced at e = 0.835 and the triaxial sequence terminates at e = 0.88.
Whereas for strange stars with same compactness, the eccentricity at bifurcation
point is e = 0.83 and e = 0.89 at the mass shedding limit, for both MIT bag
model and strangeon star model.
This could be seen more clearly from Fig. 4.2. Rotating strange stars could reach
much higher T /|W | than NSs, due to the finite surface density. In the case of
C = 0.20, the T /|W | ratio at the mass shedding limit could be as high as 0.27
for rotating strange stars, while only 0.20 for NSs.
(2) There exists supramassive triaxial solutions for strange star model. In Table 4.2,
we have listed the most massive traixial solutions we have obtained for MIT bag
model and strangeon star model, respectively. For both EoS models, the mass
exceeds their TOV maximum mass. This, in essence, is again due to the larger
T /|W | ratio strange star could reach.
According to Eq. (4.1), we know that the T /|W | ratio needed for inducing triaxial
deformation increased as compactness increases. At the same time, compactness
of the star increases with mass. As a consequence, for supramassive rotating NSs,
the T /|W | ratio required for bifurcating into triaxial branch is too large to be
reached even at the mass shedding limit for realistic EoSs. Nevertheless, such
high T /|W | ratio is not a problem for strange stars due to the self-bound nature.
(3) Traxially rotating strange stars are more efficient GW sources. To obtain precise
results of GW emission properties of triaxially rotating compact stars, one has to
evolve the initial data and extract the GW signal in the simulations. Nevertheless,
according to [28], the result obtained with quadrupole formula is consistent with
4.3 Comparison with Triaxially Rotating NS 69

0.30

0.25

0.20
T /|W |

0.15

0.10

0.05
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
e
ML C = 0.1 JB C = 0.1
ML C = 0.15 JB C = 0.15
ML C = 0.2 JB C = 0.2

0.30

0.25

0.20
T /|W |

0.15

0.10

0.05
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
e

ML C = 0.1 JB C = 0.1
ML C = 0.15 JB C = 0.15
ML C = 0.2 JB C = 0.2

Fig. 4.2 Plots for T /|W | versus eccentricity e := 1 − (Rz /Rx )2 (in proper length) for strangeon
star model (upper panel) and MIT bag model (lower panel) sequences. Solid curves are axisymmetric
solution sequences, and dashed curves are triaxial solution sequences, that correspond, to C =
M/R = 0.2 (the top green curve), 0.15 (the middle red curve) and 0.1 (the bottom blue curve)
respectively. Note that M is the spherical ADM mass. Bottom panel zooms into the region of the
triaxial solutions (marked points). Curves in grey color is the comparison case for NSs [15]
70 4 Triaxially Rotating Strange Stars

Table 4.2 Quantities of triaxial supramassive QS solutions with the largest triaxial deformation
(smallest R y /Rx ratio) in our calculations. The above quantities are defined in the same way as in
Table 4.1. The TOV maximum mass of each EoS is also shown as a comparison. Due to the limitation
of IWM formulation, there might be 5%–10% errors on the quantities listed above. To convert to
geometric G = c = 1 or cgs units, use the fact that 1 = 1.477 km = 4.927 μs = 1.989 × 1033 g
EOS Rz /Rx R y /Rx Rx c  MADM J T /|W |
MIT 0.4375 0.7657 9.978 1.259 × 0.03870 2.862 6.847 0.1839
(0.4713) (0.7938) (16.32) 10−3
Strangeon 0.4375 0.7586 7.660 1.348 × 0.05001 3.727 11.30 0.1948
(0.4912) (0.8104) (16.49) 10−3

MIT
0.040
StrangenonStar
0.035

0.030
Dh/MADM

0.025

0.020

0.015

0.010

0.85 0.86 0.87 0.88 0.89

e

Fig. 4.3 An estimation of the gravitational wave amplitude for the C = 0.2 triaxial sequence
for both MIT bag model (blue solid curve) and strangeon star model (red dashed curve). The
quantities are estimated according to the quadrupole formula. The top panel shows the GW strain
for l = m = 2 mode normalized by the distance (D) and the ADM mass (MADM ) of the source.
And the GW luminosity is shown in the bottom panel. Shown in black triangles are comparison
models of NSs obtained in [28]

the results obtained with full numerical relativity simulations. Therefore, we

have also estimated the the GW strain and power of triaxially rotating strange
stars with quadrupole formula and compared with the results of NSs. As can
be seen from Fig. 4.3, triaxially rotating strange stars are more effective GW
emitters. This, once again, is due to the fact that strange star possesses a finite
surface density due to the self-bound nature, hence larger quadrupole moment
at the same axis ratio R y /Rx . Nevertheless, according to the constraint in [20],
the GW strain from either triaxially rotating NSs or strange stars is below the
upper limit of the post-merger GW signal for GW170817. Therefore, we could
4.3 Comparison with Triaxially Rotating NS 71

not distinguish whether the merger remnant of GW170817 is a NS or strange

star yet according to the non-detection of the post-merger GW signal.
In addition, it’s worth noting that the angular velocity of the rotating star at the
bifurcation point is different for different EoS models. And according to Fig. 4.1,
the angular velocity at the bifurcation point is actually the upper limit of the entire
sequence. Considering that for solid strangeon star models, r-mode instability might
be suppressed, a strangeon star might be able to reach such high angular velocity by
accretion. Searching for fast rotating pulsars (such as sub-millisecond pulsars) in the
future would also be helpful for constraining EoS models.

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Chapter 5
Conclusion

In this thesis, we have tried to study EoS of compact stars by calculating tidal deforma-
bility and constructing initial data of uniformly, differentially and triaxially rotating
compact stars. In particular, we have focused on the difference between the results of
NS models and two strange star models (MIT bag model and strangeon star model).
After the observation of GW170817 and its EM counterparts, many researches have
been done on how to interpret the observation as constraint on NSs: the radius con-
straint from tidal deformability measurement and the exclusion of prompt collapse
scenario; the constraint on TOV maximum mass according to the fate of the merger
remnant which can be inferred from EM counterparts. However, we have demon-
strated that the constraint on compact star EoSs by the multi-messenger observation
of GW170817/GRB170817A/AT2017gfo is quite different for NSs and strange stars,
from both aspects.
Firstly, due to the finite surface density of strange stars, the calculation of tidal
deformability requires a correction on the surface. This leads to a different inter-
pretation of the tidal deformability measurement. Particularly, strangeon star could
reach MTOV as high as 4 solar mass without violating the tidal deformability con-
straint from GW170817. We have also applied the results of GW170817 to make
constraints on interquark interaction parameters.
Secondly, we have employed a self-consistence analysis based on conservation
laws to infer the maximum mass of NSs according to the EM counterparts of
GW170817. A more reliable range of 2.10−2.35 M for MTOV is derived for NS
models. For strange star models, again due to the finite surface density, the enhance-
ment in the maximum mass by uniform rotation is more than that of NS: 40% versus
20%. Therefore, the remnant will most likely be long lived if the remnant is a strange
star.
Thirdly, we have found that the relation between critical mass and angular momen-
tum of differentially rotating compact stars doesn’t depend on the rotation law. Espe-
cially, this relation also holds for strange stars. We did find that strange stars are
affected more by differential rotation. Particularly, the structure of strangeon star,
which has a smaller ratio between central density and surface density, is affected by
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 73
E. Zhou, Studying Compact Star Equation of States with General
Relativistic Initial Data Approach, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4151-3_5
74 5 Conclusion

differential rotation than MIT bag model. For instance, the drop in critical mass and
transition into type C configurations happens at smaller differential rotation rate for
strangeon stars.
In the end, we have also studied the triaxially rotating sequence of strange stars.
We have found that the critical T /|W | ratio for triggering triaxial deformation follows
the same relation as in the case of NSs while we did also find 3 main differences:
strange stars have longer triaxial sequences; supramassive triaxially rotating strange
stars do exist and triaxially rotating strange stars are more efficient GW radiation
sources. Those difference, again, is a result of the finite surface density of strange
stars.
Combining the above properties of rotating strange stars, we find that strange star
works quite well with the magnetar scenario. On one hand, for the remnant mass of
GW170817, the remnant will most likely be very long-lived for both MIT bag model
and strangeon star model. Therefore, the BH central engine model for sGRB could
not be applied for strange star model. At the same time, it’s quite uncertain about
the electron fraction of the ejecta from a binary strange star merger and whether or
not the r-process nucleosynthesis could be sufficient to produce significant amount
of lanthanides. As a consequence, a remnant magnetar is required for the binary
strange star merger scenario, both to explain the sGRB as well as the red compo-
nents of the kilonova (details about how to explain the kilonova observation within
binary strangeon star scenario could be found in [2]). On the other hand, the larger
momentum of inertia of massive strange star might lead to more energy dissipation
by GW in the early post-merger phase. In addition to this, the differential rotational
configuration of strange stars might lead to low T /|W | instabilities [1, 3–5], which
will dissipate the kinetic energy of the remnant as a competition of enhancing the
dipole magnetic fields. GW dissipation in the early post-merger and a relatively low
dipole magnetic field strength is also quite important for the magnetar scenario, to
avoid too much energy injection into the ejecta which is not consistent with the EM
counterpart observations. Last but not least, magnetar scenario will require a rela-
tively large TOV maximum mass without violating the tidal deformability constraint
and strange star could easily satisfy both conditions.

References

1. Centrella JM, New KCB, Lowe LL, David Brown J (2001) Dynamical rotational instability at
low T /W . Astrophys J 550:L193–L196
2. Lai X-Y, Yu Y-W, Zhou E-P, Li Y-Y, Xu R-X (2018) Merging strangeon stars. Res Astron
Astrophys 18:024
3. Saijo M, Baumgarte TW, Shapiro SL (2003) One-armed spiral instability in differentially rotating
stars. Astrophys J 595:352–364
4. Shibata M, Karino S, Eriguchi Y (2002) Dynamical instability of differentially rotating stars.
Mon Not R Astron Soc 334:L27
5. Shibata M, Karino S, Eriguchi Y (2003) Dynamical bar-mode instability of differentially rotating
stars: effects of equations of state and velocity profiles. Mon Not R Astron Soc 343:619
Appendix
Accuracy and Convergence Tests

Most of the contents mentioned in this thesis is based on the results of the cocal
code which is modified for the numerical calculation of strange stars. It’s essential
to test the code before applying the result for any scientific implications. We will
provide the information of our code tests in this section which contains mainly two
aspects: the comparison with results of previous studies to show the accuracy and
the convergence test.
cocal is originally designed for calculation of initial data of NSs and BHs. During
the development of the code, the accuracy and convergence behavior have already
been studied several times (in, for example, [1, 2]). Hence, one first thing we should
do is to compare the results of the modified code and the original code.
As mentioned before, the modification of the code is mainly related to the EoS
part. For calculation of strange stars, the polynomial form of EoS (Eqs. 1.32–1.34)
is used to account for the finite surface density. However, if we specify the number
of polynomial terms to be 1 and the integration constant C = 0, this polynomial
type of EoS reduces to a polytropic EoS which could be used to describe NSs. We
could calculate a configuration for such an EoS model with both the original code
and modified version and compare the results.
Generally speaking, the larger the polytropic index, the more difficult it is for
the result to converge. Considering this, we have chosen a model with very large
polytropic index  = 13/3 for this comparison. Two different compactness C = 0.1
and 0.2 are considered and we have constructed uniformly rotating solutions for
this comparison. The result is shown in Table A.1 and as can be seen, the relative
difference in all quantities of the solution is below 10−6 . In the iterations of the
cocal code, the criterion of claiming converged result is that the relative difference
between two adjacent iterations is below 10−6 . Hence, we could claim the modified
version of the code is consistent with the original one.
Besides the comparison between different versions of the code, we have also
compared with results of previous studies to validate the accuracy of IWM formu-
lation, in particular, in the case of high compactness and angular velocity. It’s worth

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 75

E. Zhou, Studying Compact Star Equation of States with General
Relativistic Initial Data Approach, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4151-3
 76

Table A.1 Rotating NS solutions obtained from the rotating QS solver are compared with those obtained from the original rotating NS solver in cocal. EoS
model parameters of these solutions in the top panel are n = 0.3, C = 0.1, while C = 0.2 for the bottom panel. R x is the equatorial radius in coordinate length
while the values in parenthesis are calculated in proper length.  is the angular velocity and c is the energy density in the center of the star. J is the angular
momentum and Z p is the polar redshift
Rz /Rx Rx  MADM T /|W | c J Zp
n = 0.3 C = 0.1
RQS 0.890625 5.4358552 (6.3246085) 0.018070655 0.57855257 0.032288017 1.0291791×10−3 0.14805818 0.12180662
RNS 0.890625 5.4358547 (6.3246049) 0.018070641 0.57855224 0.032288112 1.0291779×10−3 0.14805720 0.12180622
RQS 0.640625 6.2854795 (7.2557171) 0.029921434 0.58272647 0.11808879 9.5401758×10−4 0.31583322 0.12912362
RNS 0.640625 6.2854788 (7.2557128) 0.029921411 0.58272620 0.11808922 9.5401648×10−4 0.31583109 0.12912319
n = 0.3 C = 0.2
RQS 0.890625 5.7530609 (8.0550374) 0.022534551 1.4003781 0.035430027 1.4458805×10−3 0.72801675 0.30254712
RNS 0.890625 5.7530610 (8.0550374) 0.022534504 1.4003720 0.035430056 1.4458758×10−3 0.72801037 0.30254469
RQS 0.640625 6.7217295 (9.2447957) 0.036914579 1.4246605 0.12800151 1.3119873×10−3 1.5166206 0.32247605
RNS 0.640625 6.7217305 (9.2447923) 0.036914571 1.4246549 0.12800175 1.3119837×10−3 1.5166095 0.32247356
Appendix: Accuracy and Convergence Tests
Appendix: Accuracy and Convergence Tests 77

noting that the configurations of MIT bag model star applied in this work scales
very simply as the bag constant. Therefore, we could easily compare our results with
other calculations for MIT bag model, such as [3]. According to the comparison
of differentially rotating MIT bag model stars in [4], the relative difference indeed
increases as the configurations become more massive or the angular velocity gets
larger. Nevertheless, even for the most massive case, the difference is 1% for mass,
2% for radius and 5% for central angular velocity, which is within our expectation
for employing the conformal flatness approximation.
Besides the quantitative tests for the accuracy of the modified cocal code. We
have also investigated the convergence behavior of the code for the calculation of
strange stars. Five different resolutions are applied for this convergence test, denoted
as H2.0, H2.5, H3.0, H3.5 and H4.0. The resolution of the grids gradually increase.
From H2.0 to H4.0, the grid intervals r , θ and φ is 2/3, 3/4, 2/3, 3/4 times of
the previous grid. In principle, as the grid resolution increases, the numerical results
should approach the exact solution. The larger the resolution, the smaller the grid
intervals, the smaller error is between the numerical solution and the real solution.
This is the convergence behavior of numerical calculations. For the same physical
quantity, the results obtained in two different numerical resolutions should satisfy
 n 
μ
fμ − fν ≈ A − 1 nν , (A.1)
ν

in which A is a constant, and μ is the grid interval in resolution H μ (in our

case, H μ varies from H2.0 to H4.0). If we consider f H 3.0 − f H 2.0 , f H 3.5 − f H 2.5 and
f H 4.0 − f H 3.0 , we always have μ /ν = 1/2. We could then study the convergence
order n, namely, how the numerical error decreases as resolution increases.
We have calculated the uniformly rotating solution with axis ratio Rz /Rx = 0.75
in all five resolutions for both MIT bag model and strangeon star model. Quantities
such as angular velocity, ADM mass, angular momentum, T /|W | ratio and eccen-
tricity of the star to investigate the convergence behavior. The test could be found
in [5]. As can be seen from the fit, ADM mass, angular velocity and eccentricity
converges at second order and angular momentum, T /|W | ratio and baryonic mass
at first order.

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