Re: Two neutron stars on a collision course?

Matt Browne SFW wrote:

> On Mar 3, 9:17 am, Erik Max Francis <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Matt Browne SFW wrote:
>>> What exactly will happen when two neutron stars are on a collision
>>> course?
>> It depends on the sizes of the neutron stars and the details of the
>> impact.  I don't see how a supernova could result, since there's
>> (basically) nothing left to fuse.  The results would either be merely a
>> larger neutron star, a black hole, or fragments of a neutron star that
>> are below the critical mass necessary to make neutron stars stable,
>> which would then evaporate through neutron decay, liberating energy
>> (read: explode).
> 
> Does this mean free neutron decay? So would this form hydrogen and
> antineutrinos? If so, this would be an interesting stellar cycle
> beginning with the fusion of hydrogen all the way to iron, then iron
> via a neutron star gets converted back to hydrogen. A wonderful cosmic
> cycle. I always thought that once there's only iron left in the
> universe no new stars could form.

It's not much of a cycle since most neutron stars would be isolated and 
so wouldn't collide.  Further, in a typical neutron star-neutron star 
collision, the amount of neutron star matter that escapes will likely be 
quite small relative to the amount that ends up being as part of a 
larger neutron star or black hole.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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