Pre-merger Electromagnetic Counterparts of Binary Compact Stars

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 868; no. 1; pp. 19 - 27
• Main Authors: Wang, Jie-Shuang, Peng, Fang-Kun, Wu, Kinwah, Dai, Zi-Gao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia The American Astronomical Society 20.11.2018; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: Astrophysics; binaries: close; Binary stars; Black body radiation; Blackbody; Charged particles; Charging; Electric fields; Electromagnetic interactions; Emission analysis; Energy; Gamma ray bursts; Gamma rays; Gravitational waves; Magnetic fields; Magnetospheres; Neutron stars; Radiation; Radio bursts; Signatures; Star mergers; stars: magnetic field; stars: neutron; Synchrotron radiation; White dwarf stars; white dwarfs
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aae531
• ISSN: 0004-637X

We investigate emission signatures of binary compact star gravitational wave (GW) sources consisting of strongly magnetized neutron stars (NSs) and/or white dwarfs (WDs) in their late-time inspiral phase. Because of electromagnetic interactions between the magnetospheres of the two compact stars, a substantial amount of energy will be extracted, and the resultant power is expected to be ∼1038-1044 erg s−1 in the last few seconds before the two stars merge, when the binary system contains a NS with a surface magnetic field 1012 G. The induced electric field in the process can accelerate charged particles up to the EeV energy range. Synchrotron radiation is emitted from energetic electrons, with radiative energies reaching the GeV energy for binary NSs and the MeV energy for NS-WD or double WD binaries. In addition, a blackbody component is also presented, and it peaks at several to hundreds keV for binary NSs and at several keV for NS-WD or double WD binaries. The strong angular dependence of the synchrotron radiation and the isotropic nature of the blackbody radiation lead to distinguishable modulation patterns between the two emission components. If coherent curvature radiation is presented, fast radio bursts could be produced. These components provide unique simultaneous electromagnetic signatures as precursors of GW events associated with magnetized compact star mergers and short gamma-ray bursts (e.g., GRB 100717).