Resonant Shattering of Neutron Star Crusts
Abstract
The resonant excitation of neutron star (NS) modes by tides is investigated as a source of short gamma-ray burst (SGRB) precursors. We find that the driving of a crust-core interface mode can lead to shattering of the NS crust, liberating ∼10^(46)–10^(47) erg of energy seconds before the merger of a NS-NS or NS-black-hole binary. Such properties are consistent with Swift/BAT detections of SGRB precursors, and we use the timing of the observed precursors to place weak constraints on the crust equation of state. We describe how a larger sample of precursor detections could be used alongside coincident gravitational wave detections of the inspiral by Advanced LIGO class detectors to probe the NS structure. These two types of observations nicely complement one another, since the former constrains the equation of state and structure near the crust-core boundary, while the latter is more sensitive to the core equation of state.
Additional Information
© 2012 American Physical Society. Received 29 September 2011; published 5 January 2012. D. T., T. H., and A. L. P. were supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation at Caltech; J. S. R. by NSF Grants No. PHY-0900735 and No. PHY-1055103; A. L. P. by NASA ATP Grant No. NNX07AH06G and NSF Grant No. AST-0855535; and R. B. by NSF Grants No. PHY 06-53462 and No. PHY 09-69857, and NASA Grant No. NNG05GF71G. We thank A. Steiner for providing EOS and compositional tables and useful advice. We also thank D. Lai, C. Hirata, B. Metzger, C. Ott, E. Flanagan, C. Cutler, C. Horowitz, S. Phinney, B. Giacomazzo, P. Goldreich, A. Lundgren, N. Andersson, C. Gundlach, and the organizers of the MICRA workshop for valuable discussion.Attached Files
Published - Tsang2012p16994Phys_Rev_Lett.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 29147
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20120206-102145924
- Sherman Fairchild Foundation
- PHY-0900735
- NSF
- PHY-1055103
- NSF
- NNX07AH06G
- NASA
- AST-0855535
- NSF
- PHY 06-53462
- NSF
- PHY 09-69857
- NSF
- NNG05GF71G
- NASA
- Created
-
2012-02-06Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- TAPIR