The collision and merger products of stars do not look alike: A magnetohydrodynamics comparison

Abstract

A significant fraction of stars experience close interactions, including collisions resulting from gravitational encounters and mergers within close binary systems. These processes can produce more massive stars that may give rise to relatively rare objects such as blue stragglers. Distinguishing the outcomes of collisions and mergers is challenging yet essential for interpreting observations. This study utilizes the magnetohydrodynamics code AREPO to simulate collisions and mergers of $5$ to $10 \,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ main-sequence stars, systematically comparing the properties of the resulting products. Both collisions and mergers yield more massive, strongly magnetized, rapidly and differentially rotating stars with cores enriched in hydrogen, but notable quantitative differences emerge. Merger products exhibit core hydrogen fractions up to $10\%$ higher than those of collision products. In both scenarios, turbulent mixing amplifies magnetic field energies by $9$ to $12$ orders of magnitude. However, magnetic fields in small-impact-parameter collision products display small-scale reversals that may dissipate over time, whereas merger products and large-impact-parameter collision products develop large-scale ordered, potentially long-lived magnetic fields. Additionally, only merger products display magnetically driven, bipolar outflows with radial velocities exceeding $300$ to $400 \,\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. These distinctions may result in different long-term evolutionary outcomes, which warrant further investigation in future studies.