David Tsang, Jocelyn S. Read, Tanja Hinderer, Anthony L. Piro, Ruxandra Bondarescu
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.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.0467
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