Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 28, 2025
08:55
Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
8.8K
Probing Crust Meltdown in Inspiraling Binary Neutron Stars
Zhen Pan1, Zhenwei Lyu1,2, Béatrice Bonga1,3
1Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada.
Physical Review Letters
|December 1, 2020
Summary
Neutron star crusts can transition from elastic to plastic during binary inspirals, causing meltdown and a gravitational wave phase shift. This phenomenon offers new insights into neutron star structure, detectable with future gravitational wave observatories.
Area of Science:
- Astrophysics
- Nuclear Physics
- Gravitational Wave Astronomy
Background:
- Recent measurements of neutron star tidal deformability and radius have improved understanding of their equation of state and structure.
- Neutron star crust properties, particularly the core-crust transition density, remain poorly constrained by existing observational data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the phenomenon of elastic-to-plastic transition in neutron star crusts during resonant tidal excitations in binary inspirals.
- To determine the potential impact of crust meltdown on gravitational waveforms and its detectability.
- To explore how detecting this signal can provide new information about neutron star crust structure.
Main Methods:
- Simulating resonant tidal excitations in binary neutron star inspirals.
- Modeling the elastic-to-plastic transition within the neutron star crust.
- Analyzing the resulting gravitational waveform for phase shifts induced by crust meltdown.
Main Results:
- The neutron star crust generically undergoes an elastic-to-plastic transition during resonant tidal excitations.
- This transition leads to crust heating and eventual meltdown, inducing a phase shift of approximately 0.1 in the gravitational waveform.
- A direct search for this signal in GW170817 data was inconclusive, likely due to insufficient signal-to-noise ratio.
Conclusions:
- Neutron star crust meltdown is a predictable consequence of resonant tidal excitations in binary inspirals.
- Detecting the timing and phase shift of crust meltdown can probe the neutron star crust structure, including the core-crust transition density.
- Future gravitational wave detectors like Advanced LIGO Plus, Einstein Telescope, and Cosmic Explorer are predicted to be capable of observing this signal.
Related Concept Videos
02:45Nuclear Fusion
33.1K
The process of converting very light nuclei into heavier nuclei is also accompanied by the conversion of mass into large amounts of energy, a process called fusion. The principal source of energy in the sun is a net fusion reaction in which four hydrogen nuclei fuse and ultimately produce one helium nucleus and two positrons.
A helium nucleus has a mass that is 0.7% less than that of four hydrogen nuclei; this lost mass is converted into energy during the fusion. This reaction produces about...
A helium nucleus has a mass that is 0.7% less than that of four hydrogen nuclei; this lost mass is converted into energy during the fusion. This reaction produces about...
33.1K
02:50Nuclear Fission
11.2K
Many heavier elements with smaller binding energies per nucleon can decompose into more stable elements that have intermediate mass numbers and larger binding energies per nucleon—that is, mass numbers and binding energies per nucleon that are closer to the “peak” of the binding energy graph near 56. Sometimes neutrons are also produced. This decomposition of a large nucleus into smaller pieces is called fission. The breaking is rather random with the formation of a large...
11.2K
01:21Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
2.4K
No object with a finite mass can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. This fact has an interesting consequence in the domain of extremely high gravitational fields.
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape...
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape...
2.4K
03:18Nuclear Stability
21.6K
Protons and neutrons, collectively called nucleons, are packed together tightly in a nucleus. With a radius of about 10−15 meters, a nucleus is quite small compared to the radius of the entire atom, which is about 10−10 meters. Nuclei are extremely dense compared to bulk matter, averaging 1.8 × 1014 grams per cubic centimeter. If the earth’s density were equal to the average nuclear density, the earth’s radius would be only about 200 meters.
To hold positively charged protons together...
To hold positively charged protons together...
21.6K
01:23Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Relaxation Processes
931
In the absence of an external magnetic field, nuclear spin states are degenerate and randomly oriented. When a magnetic field is applied, the spins begin to precess and orient themselves along (lower energy) or against (higher energy) the direction of the field. At equilibrium, a slight excess population of spins exists in the lower energy state. Because the direction of the magnetic field is fixed as the z-axis, the precessing magnetic moments are randomly oriented around the z-axis.
931
01:10Detection of Black Holes
2.4K
Although black holes were theoretically postulated in the 1920s, they remained outside the domain of observational astronomy until the 1970s.
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
2.4K