General relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of binary strange star mergers

We perform fully general relativistic simulations of binary strange star mergers considering two different approaches for thermal effects. The first uses a cold equation of state derived from a modified version of the MIT bag model which is then supplemented by a Γ-law correction. The second approach employs a microphysical description of the finite temperature effects. We describe the results obtained with the two treatments, highlighting the influence of thermal effects. We find that the postmerger dynamics differs significantly in the two cases, leading to quantitative differences in the postmerger gravitational wave spectrum and ejecta mass. The peak frequency of the postmerger gravitational wave emission is consistent with the established quasiuniversal relations for binary neutron star mergers and as a result, our simulations cannot distinguish between mergers of neutron stars and those of strange stars. Our models with realistic treatment of finite temperature effects produce a significant amount of ejecta 0.02M. The resulting flux of strangelets near the Earth, computed assuming that all neutron star mergers are in fact strange-stars mergers, that the average mass of each strangelet is A∼100, and that the binary considered here is representative, is in tension with experimental upper limits.