Publications (51)
Kinetic simulations of the lowest-order unstable mode of relativistic magnetostatic equilibria
Krzysztof Nalewajko, Jonathan Zrake, Yajie Yuan +2
We present the results of particle-in-cell numerical pair plasma simulations of relativistic 2D magnetostatic equilibria known as the 'ABC' fields. In particular, we focus on the l…
Shock-powered radio precursors of neutron star mergers from accelerating relativistic binary winds
Navin Sridhar, Jonathan Zrake, Brian D. Metzger +2
During the final stages of a compact object merger, if at least one of the binary components is a magnetized neutron star (NS), then its orbital motion substantially expands the NS…
Disappearing thermal X-ray emission as a tell-tale signature of merging massive black hole binaries
Luke Major Krauth, Jordy Davelaar, Zoltán Haiman +3
The upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is expected to detect gravitational waves (GWs) from massive black hole binaries (MBHB). Finding the electromagnetic (EM) cou…
Producing Magnetar Magnetic Fields in the Merger of Binary Neutron Stars
Bruno Giacomazzo, Jonathan Zrake, Paul Duffell +2
The merger of binary neutron stars (BNSs) can lead to large amplifications of the magnetic field due to the development of turbulence and instabilities in the fluid, such as the Ke…
Systematic Error in Approximate Models of the GRB Early Afterglow
Benjamin Amend, Eric R. Coughlin, Jonathan Zrake
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are thought to arise when relativistic ejecta launched by a compact central engine drive a blast wave into the surrounding circumburst medium, prod…
The Santa Barbara Binary-Disk Code Comparison
Paul C. Duffell, Alexander J. Dittmann, Daniel J. D'Orazio +13
We have performed numerical calculations of a binary interacting with a gas disk, using eleven different numerical methods and a standard binary-disk setup. The goal of this study…
The interaction phase of engine-driven explosions and high-energy winds
Benjamin Amend, Christopher Lagomarsino, Eric R. Coughlin +1
Wide-angle outflows, or winds, are associated with a broad range of astrophysical systems, including protostars, massive stars, X-ray binaries, tidal disruption events (TDEs), lumi…
Thermal X-ray signatures in late-stage unequal-mass massive black hole binary mergers
Luke Major Krauth, Jordy Davelaar, Zoltán Haiman +3
The multi-messenger combination of gravitational waves (GWs) from merging massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) and the electromagnetic (EM) counterpart from the surrounding circumbi…
How Binaries Accrete: Hydrodynamic Simulations with Passive Tracer Particles
Christopher Tiede, Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen +1
Linear analysis of gas flows around orbiting binaries suggests that a centrifugal barrier ought to clear a low-density cavity around the binary and inhibit mass transfer onto it. M…
Low-energy Explosions in a Gravitational Field: Implications for Sub-energetic Supernovae and Fast X-ray Transients
Daniel A. Paradiso, Eric R. Coughlin, Jonathan Zrake +1
Observations and theory suggest that core-collapse supernovae can span a range of explosion energies, and when sub-energetic, the shockwave initiating the explosion can decelerate…
Multi-band light curves from eccentric accreting supermassive black hole binaries
John Ryan Westernacher-Schneider, Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen +1
We use long-run, high-resolution hydrodynamics simulations to compute the multi-wavelength light curves (LCs) from thermal disk emission around accreting equal-mass supermassive bl…
Ellipsars: Ring-like explosions from flattened stars
Marcus DuPont, Andrew MacFadyen, Jonathan Zrake
The stellar cataclysms producing astronomical transients have long been modeled as either a point-like explosion or jet-like engine ignited at the center of a spherically symmetric…
Kinetic study of radiation-reaction-limited particle acceleration during the relaxation of unstable force-free equilibria
Yajie Yuan, Krzysztof Nalewajko, Jonathan Zrake +2
Many powerful and variable gamma-ray sources, including pulsar wind nebulae, active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts, seem capable of accelerating particles to gamma-ray emitti…
Numerical simulations of the jet dynamics and synchrotron radiation of binary neutron star merger event GW170817/GRB170817A
Xiaoyi Xie, Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen
We present numerical simulations of energetic flows propagating through the debris cloud of a binary neutron star (BNS) merger. Starting from the scale of the central engine, we us…
Equilibrium eccentricity of accreting binaries
Jonathan Zrake, Christopher Tiede, Andrew MacFadyen +1
Using high-resolution hydrodynamics simulations, we show that equal-mass binaries accreting from a circumbinary disk evolve toward an orbital eccentricity of , unles…
R-process Rain from Binary Neutron Star Mergers in the Galactic Halo
Benjamin Amend, Jonathan Zrake, Dieter H. Hartmann
Compact binary mergers involving at least one neutron star are promising sites for the synthesis of -process elements found in stars and planets. However, mergers can t…
A Physical Model of Delayed Rebrightenings in Shock-interacting Supernovae without Narrow Line Emission
Eric R. Coughlin, Jonathan Zrake
Core-collapse supernovae can display evidence of interaction with pre-existing, circumstellar shells of material by rebrightening and forming spectral lines, and can even change ty…
Numerical Simulations of Driven Supersonic Relativistic MHD Turbulence
Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen
Models for GRB outflows invoke turbulence in relativistically hot magnetized fluids. In order to investigate these conditions we have performed high-resolution three-dimensional nu…
Relativistic Binary Precession: Impact on Eccentric Binary Accretion and Multi-Messenger Astronomy
Stanislav DeLaurentiis, Zoltan Haiman, John Ryan Westernacher-Schneider +4
Recent hydrodynamical simulations have shown that circumbinary gas disks drive the orbits of binary black holes to become eccentric, even when general relativistic corrections to t…
Efficient Nonthermal Particle Acceleration by the Kink Instability in Relativistic Jets
E. Paulo Alves, Jonathan Zrake, Frederico Fiuza
Relativistic magnetized jets from active galaxies are among the most powerful cosmic accelerators, but their particle acceleration mechanisms remain a mystery. We present a new acc…
Magnetic Field Generation in Stars
Lilia Ferrario, Andrew Melatos, Jonathan Zrake
Enormous progress has been made on observing stellar magnetism in stars from the main sequence through to compact objects. Recent data have thrown into sharper relief the vexed que…
Long-term Evolution of Binary Orbits Induced by Circumbinary Disks
Ruggero Valli, Christopher Tiede, Alejandro Vigna-Gómez +6
Circumbinary disks are found in a variety of astrophysical scenarios, spanning binary star formation to accreting supermassive black hole binaries. The interaction with a circumbin…
Eccentric Minidisks in Accreting Binaries
John Ryan Westernacher-Schneider, Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen +1
We show that gas disks around the components of an orbiting binary system (so-called minidisks) may be susceptible to a resonant instability which causes the minidisks to become si…
Radio sky maps of the GRB 170817A afterglow from simulations
Jonathan Zrake, Xiaoyi Xie, Andrew MacFadyen
We present synthetic radio images of the GRB170817A afterglow, computed from moving-mesh hydrodynamic simulations of binary neutron star merger outflows. Having expanded for nearly…
Spontaneous decay of periodic magnetostatic equilibria
William E. East, Jonathan Zrake, Yajie Yuan +1
In order to understand the conditions which lead a highly magnetized, relativistic plasma to become unstable, and in such cases how the plasma evolves, we study a prototypical clas…
Magnetic energy production by turbulence in binary neutron star mergers
Jonathan Zrake, Andrew I. MacFadyen
The simultaneous detection of electromagnetic and gravitational wave emission from merging neutron star binaries would aid greatly in their discovery and interpretation. By studyin…
Multi-Messenger Astronomy with Extremely Large Telescopes
Ryan Chornock, Philip S. Cowperthwaite, Raffaella Margutti +82
The field of time-domain astrophysics has entered the era of Multi-messenger Astronomy (MMA). One key science goal for the next decade (and beyond) will be to characterize gravitat…
Nonthermal ion acceleration by the kink instability in nonrelativistic jets
E. Paulo Alves, Jonathan Zrake, Frederico Fiuza
We investigate the self-consistent particle acceleration physics associated with the development of the kink instability (KI) in nonrelativistic, electron-ion plasma jets. Using 3D…
Unequal Mass Binary Evolution Driven by High Mach Circumbinary Disks
Madeline Clyburn, Jonathan Zrake
We present a study of the gas-driven orbital evolution of unequal mass black hole binaries with circumbinary gas disks (CBDs), varying Mach number and viscosity (nu). Using two-dim…
Turbulent magnetic relaxation in pulsar wind nebulae
Jonathan Zrake, Jonathan Arons
We present a model for magnetic energy dissipation in a pulsar wind nebula. Better understanding of this process is required to assess the likelihood that certain astrophysical tra…
Ab initio Simulations of a Supernova Driven Galactic Dynamo in an Isolated Disk Galaxy
Iryna Butsky, Jonathan Zrake, Ji-hoon Kim +2
We study the magnetic field evolution of an isolated spiral galaxy, using isolated Milky Way-mass galaxy formation simulations and a novel prescription for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD…
Numerical Simulations of Driven Relativistic MHD Turbulence
Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen
A wide variety of astrophysical phenomena involve the flow of turbulent magnetized gas with relativistic velocity or energy density. Examples include gamma-ray bursts, active galac…
Simplex-in-Cell Technique for Collisionless Plasma Simulations
Julian Kates-Harbeck, Samuel Totorica, Jonathan Zrake +1
We extend the simplex-in-cell (SIC) technique recently introduced in the context of collisionless dark matter fluids (Abel et al. 2012; Hahn et al. 2012) to the case of collisionle…
Self-lensing flares from black hole binaries III: general-relativistic ray tracing of circumbinary accretion simulations
Luke Major Krauth, Jordy Davelaar, Zoltán Haiman +3
Self-lensing flares (SLFs) are expected to be produced once or twice per orbit by an accreting massive black hole binary (MBHB), if the eclipsing MBHBs are observed close to edge-o…
Spectral and Intermittency Properties of Relativistic Turbulence
Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen
High-resolution numerical simulations are utilized to examine isotropic turbulence in a compressible fluid when long wavelength velocity fluctuations approach light speed. Spectral…
Massive Perturbers and Transient Pickup Discs in Disc-Crossing Encounters in OJ 287-like Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
Debojyoti Garain, Jonathan Zrake, Zoltan Haiman
We study the hydrodynamical response of a massive black hole accretion disc punctured by a lower mass black hole on an inclined, eccentric orbit, as motivated by the quasi-periodic…
Inverse cascade of non-helical magnetic turbulence in a relativistic fluid
Jonathan Zrake
The free decay of non-helical relativistic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence is studied numerically, and found to exhibit cascading of magnetic energy toward large scales. Evolution o…
Stochastic Variability of Binary Accretion
Akhil Nair, Jonathan Zrake
We measure the power spectral density (PSD) of the accretion rate time series in an unequal mass (q = 0.2) binary surrounded by a circumbinary gas disk, using very high-resolution…
Changing-Look Inspirals: Trends and Switches in AGN Disk Emission as Signposts for Merging Black Hole Binaries
Jonathan Zrake, Madeline Clyburn, Samuel Feyan
Using grid-based hydrodynamics simulations and analytic modeling, we compute the electromagnetic (EM) signatures of gravitational wave (GW) driven inspirals of massive black hole b…
Sub-photospheric turbulence as a heating mechanism in gamma-ray bursts
Jonathan Zrake, Andrei M. Beloborodov, Christoffer Lundman
We examine the possible role of turbulence in feeding the emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Turbulence may develop in a GRB jet as the result of hydrodynamic or current-driven i…
Freely decaying turbulence in force-free electrodynamics
Jonathan Zrake, William E. East
Freely decaying relativistic force-free turbulence is studied for the first time. We initiate the magnetic field at a short wavelength and simulate its relaxation toward equilibriu…
Crab flares due to turbulent dissipation of the pulsar striped wind
Jonathan Zrake
We interpret -ray flares from the Crab Nebula as the signature of turbulence in the pulsar's electromagnetic outflow. Turbulence is triggered upstream by dynamical instability…
Spectroastrometric Survey of Protoplanetary Disks with Inner Dust Cavities
Stanley K. Jensen, Sean D. Brittain, Andrea Banzatti +6
We present high-resolution spectra and spectroastrometric (SA) measurements of fundamental rovibrational CO emission from nine nearby (300 pc) protoplanetary disks where…
Circumbinary Disks: Accretion and Torque as a Function of Mass Ratio and Disk Viscosity
Paul C. Duffell, Daniel D'Orazio, Andrea Derdzinski +4
Using numerical hydrodynamics calculations and a novel method for densely sampling parameter space, we measure the accretion and torque on a binary system from a circumbinary disk.…
The dynamics and electromagnetic signatures of accretion in unequal mass binary black hole inspirals
Madeline Clyburn, Jonathan Zrake
We present a theoretical study of the gravitational wave (GW) driven inspirals of accreting black hole binaries with mass and mass ratios between and $…
Eccentric Disks from Gaseous Rings around Equal-Mass, Circular Binaries
Leonardo Betancourt, Andrew MacFadyen, Jonathan Zrake
We perform high-resolution, grid-based hydrodynamics simulations of gaseous rings viscously spreading into disks around equal-mass, circular binaries. We find that all systems supp…
Dissipation of Alfvén Waves in Relativistic Magnetospheres of Magnetars
Xinyu Li, Jonathan Zrake, Andrei M. Beloborodov
Magnetar flares excite strong Alfvén waves in the magnetosphere of the neutron star. The wave energy can (1) dissipate in the magnetosphere, (2) convert to "fast modes" and possib…
Suppressed accretion onto massive black hole binaries surrounded by thin disks
Christopher Tiede, Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen +1
We demonstrate that gas disks around binary systems might deliver gas to the binary components only when the circumbinary disk is relatively warm. We present new grid-based hydrody…
Constraining the PG 1553+113 binary hypothesis: interpreting hints of a new, 22-year period
Sagar Adhikari, Pablo Penil, John Ryan Westernacher-Schneider +5
PG 1553+113 is a well-known blazar exhibiting evidence of a -yr quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) in radio, optical, X-ray, and -ray bands. Since QPO mechanisms ofte…
Gas-driven inspiral of binaries in thin accretion disks
Christopher Tiede, Jonathan Zrake, Andrew MacFadyen +1
Numerical studies of gas accretion onto supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) have generally been limited to conditions where the circumbinary disk (CBD) is 10-100 times thicke…
Massive Black Hole Binaries as LISA Precursors in the Roman High Latitude Time Domain Survey
Zoltán Haiman, Chengcheng Xin, Tamara BogdanoviÄ +27
With its capacity to observe faint active galactic nuclei (AGN) out to redshift , Roman is poised to reveal a population of b…