Magnetic fields of coalescing neutron stars and the luminosity function of short gamma-ray bursts

Coalescing binary neutron stars are the most promising candidates for detection by gravitational-wave detectors and are considered to be most promising for explaining the phenomenon of short gamma-ray bursts. The magnetic fields of neutron stars during their coalescence can produce a number of interesting observational manifestations and can affect significantly the shape of the gravitationalwave signal. In this paper, we model the distribution of magnetic fields in coalescing neutron stars by the population synthesis method using various assumptions about the initial parameters of the neutron stars and the evolution laws of their magnetic fields. We discuss possible electromagnetic phenomena preceding the coalescence of magnetized neutron stars and the effect of magnetic field energy on the shape of the gravitational-wave signal during the coalescence. For a log-normal (Gaussian in logarithm) distribution of the initialmagnetic fields consistent with the observations of radio pulsars, the distribution inmagnetic field energy during the coalescence is shown to describe adequately the observed luminosity function of short gamma-ray bursts under various assumptions about the pattern of field evolution and initial parameters of neutron stars.