Bright X-ray flares are routinely detected by the Swift satellite during the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts, when the explosion ejecta drives a blast wave into the external medium. We suggest that the flares are produced as the reverse shock propagates into the tail of the ejecta. The ejecta is expected to contain a few dense shells formed at an earlier stage of the explosion. We show an example of how such dense shells form and describe how the reverse shock interacts with them. A new reflected shock is generated in this interaction, which produces a short-lived X-ray flare. The model provides a natural explanation for the main observed features of the X-ray flares --- the fast rise, the steep power-law decline, and the characteristic peak duration Δt /t= (0.1-0.3).
Astrophysical explosions result from the release of magnetic, gravitational, or thermonuclear energy on dynamical timescales, typically the sound-crossing time for the system. These explosions include solar and stellar flares, eruptive phenomena in accretion disks, thermonuclear combustion on the surfaces of white dwarfs and neutron stars, violent magnetic reconnection in neutron stars, thermonuclear and gravitational collapse supernovae and cosmic gamma-ray bursts, each representing a different type and amount of energy release. This paper summarizes the properties of these explosions and des…
In strict analogy to prompt pulses, X-ray flares observed by Swift-XRT in long Gamma-Ray Bursts define a lag-luminosity relation: L_p,iso \propto t_lag^{-0.95+/-0.23}. The lag-luminosity is proven to be a fundamental law extending 5 decades in time and 5 in energy. This is direct evidence that GRB X-ray flares and prompt gamma-ray pulses are produced by the same mechanism.
Short gamma-ray bursts may originate from the merger of double neutron stars (NS) or that of a black hole (BH) and an NS. We propose that the bright X-ray flare related to the central engine reactivity may hint a BH-NS merger, since such a merger can provide more fall-back materials and therefore a more massive accretion disk than the NS-NS merger. Based on the observed 49 short bursts with Swift/X-ray Telescope follow-up observations, we find that three bursts have bright X-ray flares, among which three flares from two bursts are probably related to the central engine reactivity. We argue tha…
We statistically study gamma-ray burst (GRB) optical flares from the Swift/UVOT catalog. We compile 119 optical flares, including 77 flares with redshift measurements. Some tight correlations among the time scales of optical flares are found. For example, the rise time is correlated with the decay time, and the duration time is correlated with the peak time of optical flares. These two tight correlations indicate that longer rise times are associated with longer decay times of optical flares, and also suggest that broader optical flares peak at later times, which are consistent with the corres…
X-ray flares detected in nearly half of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are one of the most intriguing phenomena in high-energy astrophysics. All the observations indicate that the central engines of bursts, after the gamma-ray emission has ended, still have long periods of activity, during which energetic explosions eject relativistic materials, leading to late-time X-ray emission. It is thus expected that X-ray flares provide important clues to the nature of the central engines of GRBs, and more importantly, unveil the physical mechanism of the flares themselves, which has so far remained m…
Properties of the population of millisecond extragalactic radio bursts discovered by Thornton et al. (2013) are in good correspondence with the hypothesis that such events are related to hyperflares of magnetars, as was proposed by us after the first observation of an extragalactic millisecond radio burst by Lorimer et al. (2007). We also point that some of multiple millisecond radio bursts from M31 discovered by Rubio-Herrera et al. (2013) also can be related to weaker magnetar bursts.
Magnetars, the likely sources of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), produce both steady highly relativistic magnetized winds, and occasional ejection events. We demonstrate that the requirement of conservation of the magnetic flux dominates the overall dynamics of magnetic explosions. This is missed in conventional hydrodynamic models of the ejections as expanding shell with parametrically added magnetic field, as well as one-dimensional models of magnetic disturbances. Most of the initial free energy of an explosion is actually spent on stretching its own internal magnetic field, while doing minimal $…
We present a catalog of 497 flaring periods found in gamma-ray burst (GRB) light curves taken from the online XRT GRB Catalogue. We analyzed 680 individual light curves using a flare detection method developed and used on our UV/optical GRB Flare Catalog. The method makes use of the Bayesian Information Criterion to analyze the residuals of fitted GRB light curves and statistically determines the optimal fit to the light curve residuals in attempt to identify any additional features. These features, which we classify as flares, are identified by iteratively adding additional `breaks' to the li…
Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts often show flares, plateaus, and sudden intensity drops: these temporal features are difficult to explain as coming from the forward shock. We calculate radiative properties of early GRB afterglows with the dominant contribution from the reverse shock (RS) propagating in an ultra-relativistic (pulsar-like) wind produced by the long-lasting central engine. RS emission occurs in the fast cooling regime -- this ensures high radiative efficiency and allows fast intensity variations. We demonstrate that: (i) mild wind power, of the order of $\sim 10^{46}$ erg s$^{-1}$…
We consider a magnetar flare model for fast radio bursts (FRBs). We show that millisecond burst of sufficient power can be generated by synchrotron maser emission ignited at the reverse shock propagating through the weakly magnetized material that forms the magnetar flare. If the maser emission is generated in an anisotropic regime (due to the geometry of the production region or presence of an intense external source of stimulating photons) the duration of the maser flashes is similar to the magnetar flare duration even if the shock front radius is large. Our scenario allows relaxing the requ…
X-ray flares are generally supposed to be produced by the later central engine activities, and may share the similar physical origin with prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In this paper, we have analyzed all significant X-ray flares from the GRBs observed by {\em Swift} from April 2005 to March 2015. The catalog contains 468 bright X-ray flares, including 200 flares with redshifts. We obtain the fitting results of X-ray flares, such as start time, peak time, duration, peak flux, fluence, peak luminosity, and mean luminosity. The peak luminosity decreases with peak time, following a p…
Cosmic explosions called $γ$-ray bursts are the most energetic bursting events in the universe. Observations of extremely high-energy emission from two $γ$-ray bursts provide a new way to study these gigantic explosions.
Prompt gamma-ray and early X-ray afterglow emission in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are characterized by a bursty behavior and are often interspersed with long quiescent times. There is compelling evidence that X-ray flares are linked to prompt gamma-rays. However, the physical mechanism that leads to the complex temporal distribution of gamma-ray pulses and X-ray flares is not understood. Here we show that the waiting time distribution (WTD) of pulses and flares exhibits a power-law tail extending over 4 decades with index ~2 and can be the manifestation of a common time-dependent Poisson process.…
X-ray Analysis of Gamma-Ray Burst Flares and Underlying Afterglows: Insights into Origin of Flares
Bar-Ilan University（巴伊兰大学）；KTH Royal Institute of Technology（皇家理工学院）；The Oskar Klein Centre（奥斯卡·克莱因中心）；Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)（印度科学教育与研究机构）
Distinct X-ray plateau and flare phases have been observed in the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and most of them should be related to central engine activities. In this paper, we collect 174 GRBs with X-ray plateau phases and 106 GRBs with X-ray flares. There are 51 GRBs that overlap in the two selected samples. We analyze the distributions of the proportions of the plateau energy $E_{\rm plateau}$ and the flare energy $E_{\rm flare}$ relative to the isotropic prompt emission energy $E_{\rm γ,iso}$. The results indicate that they well meet the Gaussian distributions and the medians of…
We develop a model to explain the flaring activity in gamma-ray burst X-ray afterglows within the framework of slightly misaligned observers to structured jets. We suggest that flares could be the manifestation of prompt dissipation within the core of the jet, appearing to a misaligned observer in the X-ray band because of less favorable Doppler boosting. These flares appear during the afterglow phase because of core--observer light travel delays. In this picture, the prompt emission recorded by this observer comes from material along their line of sight, in the lateral structure of the jet, o…
In this note we discuss the possibility of detecting the accompanying X-ray emission from sources of fast radio bursts with the eROSITA telescope onboard the Spektr-RG observatory. It is shown that during four years of the survey program about 300 bursts are expected to appear in the field of view of eROSITA. About 1\% of them will be detected by ground-based radio telescopes. For a total energy release $\sim~10^{46}$~ergs depending on the spectral parameters and absorption in the interstellar and intergalactic media, an X-ray flare can be detected from distances from $\sim 1$~Mpc (thermal spe…
We study RXTE PCA data for the high mass X-ray binary source SMC X-1 between 2003-10 and 2003-12 when the source was in high states. The source is found to be frequently bursting which can be seen as flares in lightcurves on an average of one in every 800 s, with an average of 4-5 X-ray burst per hour of type II. We note that typically burst was short lasting for few tens of seconds in addition few long bursts of more than hundred seconds were also observed. The flares apparently occupied 2.5$\%$ of the total observing time of 225.5 ks. We note a total of 272 flares with mean FWHM of the flare…
Flaring activity following gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), observed in both long and short GRBs, signals a long-term activity of the central engine. However, its production mechanism has remained elusive. Here we develop a quantitative model of the idea proposed by Perna et al. of a disc whose outer regions fragment due to the onset of gravitational instability. The self-gravitating clumps migrate through the disc and begin to evolve viscously when tidal and shearing torques break them apart. Our model consists of two ingredients: theoretical bolometric flare lightcurves whose shape (width, skewness)…
Magnetars younger than one century are expected to be hyper active. Besides winds powered by rotation they generate frequent magnetic flares, which launch powerful blast waves into the wind. These internal shocks act as masers producing fast (millisecond) radio bursts (FRBs) with the following properties. (1) GHz radio emission occurs at radii $r\sim 10^{14}$ cm and lasts $\lesssim 1$ ms in observer's time. (2) Induced scattering in the surrounding wind does not suppress the radio burst. (3) The emission has linear polarization set by the magnetar rotation axis. (4) The emission drifts to lowe…
We present the first systematic study of X-ray flare candidates in short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) exploiting the large 6-year Swift database with the aim to constrain the physical nature of such fluctuations. We find that flare candidates appear in different types of SGRB host galaxy environments and show no clear correlation with the X-ray afterglow lifetime; flare candidates are detected both in SGRBs with a bright extended emission in the soft gamma-rays and in SGRBs which do not show such component. We furthermore show that SGRB X-ray flare candidates only partially share the set of observ…
The temporal and spectral analysis of 9 bright X-ray flares out of a sample of 113 flares observed by Swift reveals that the flare phenomenology is strictly analogous to the prompt gamma-ray emission: high energy flare profiles rise faster, decay faster and peak before the low energy emission. However, flares and prompt pulses differ in one crucial aspect: flares evolve with time. As time proceeds flares become wider, with larger peak lag, lower luminosities and softer emission. The flare spectral peak energy E_{p,i} evolves to lower values following an exponential decay which tracks the decay…
We present an updated catalog of 113 X-ray flares detected by Swift in the ~33% of the X-ray afterglows of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB). 43 flares have a measured redshift. For the first time the analysis is performed in 4 different X-ray energy bands, allowing us to constrain the evolution of the flare temporal properties with energy. We find that flares are narrower at higher energies: their width follows a power-law relation w~E^{-0.5} reminiscent of the prompt emission. Flares are asymmetric structures, with a decay time which is twice the rise time on average. Both time scales linearly evolve w…
The giant flares of soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) have long been proposed to contribute to at least a subsample of the observed short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In this paper, we perform a comprehensive analysis of the high-energy data of the recent bright short GRB 200415A, which was located close to the Sculptor galaxy. Our results suggest that a magnetar giant flare provides the most natural explanation for most observational properties of GRB 200415A, including its location, temporal and spectral features, energy, statistical correlations, and high-energy emissions. On the other hand, the …
X-ray afterglow light curves have been collected for over 400 Swift gamma-ray bursts with nearly half of them having X-ray flares superimposed on the regular afterglow decay. Evidence suggests that gamma-ray prompt emission and X-ray flares share a common origin and that at least some flares can only be explained by long-lasting central engine activity. We have developed a shell model code to address the question of how X-ray flares are produced within the framework of the internal shock model. The shell model creates randomized GRB explosions from a central engine with multiple shells and fol…
Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts are observed to produce light curves with the flux following power law evolution in time. However, recent observations reveal bright flares at times on the order of minutes to days. One proposed explanation for these flares is the interaction of a relativistic blast wave with a circumburst density transition. In this paper, we model this type of interaction computationally in one and two dimensions, using a relativistic hydrodynamics code with adaptive mesh refinement called RAM, and analytically in one dimension. We simulate a blast wave traveling in a stellar w…
Many explosive astrophysical events, like magnetars' bursts and flares, are magnetically driven. We consider dynamics of such magnetic explosions - relativistic expansion of highly magnetized and highly magnetically over-pressurized clouds. The corresponding dynamics is qualitatively different from fluid explosions due to the topological constraint of the conservation of the magnetic flux. Using analytical, relativistic MHD as well as force-free calculations, we find that the creation of a relativistically expanding, causally disconnected flow obeys a threshold condition: it requires sufficien…
The statistics of X-ray flares in the afterglow of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been studied extensively without considering the possible different origins of each flare. By satisfying six observational criteria, we find a sample composed of $16$ long GRBs observed by \textit{Swift} satellite may share a same origin. By applying the Markov chain Monte Carlo iteration and the machine learning algorithms (locally weighted regression and Gaussian process regression), impressively, the flares in these GRBs show strong correlations with the energy released in the prompt emission. These correlations…
The Association of Solar Radio Bursts with Eruptive and Confined Flares
Space Warfare Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory（太空作战司令部，空军研究实验室）；University of New Mexico（新墨西哥大学）；University of Colorado, Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校）；National Solar Observatory（国家太阳观测台）
The Galactic hard X-ray transient SWIFT J195509+261406 was first observed as a gamma-ray burst GRB 070610. Within 3 days after the burst, more than forty optical flares had been observed. Here we propose that this peculiar event should be associated with a white dwarf. The hard X-ray burst itself may be triggered by the collision between two planets orbiting the white dwarf. Some cracked frag-ments produced in the collision then fall onto the surface of the white dwarf in several days, giving birth to the observed optical flares via cyclotron radiation. Our model can satisfactorily explain the…
X-ray flares of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are usually observed in the soft X-ray range and the spectral coverage is limited. In this paper, we present an analysis of 32 GRB X-ray flares that are simultaneously observed by both BAT and XRT on board the Swift mission, so a joint spectral analysis with a wider spectral coverage is possible. Our results show that the joint spectra of 19 flares are fitted with the absorbed single power-law or the Band function models. More interestingly, the joint spectra of the other 13 X-ray flares are fitted with the absorbed single power-law model plus a black bo…
While there is mounting evidence that long Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are associated with the collapse of massive stars, the detailed structure of their pre-supernova stage is still debatable. Particularly uncertain is the degree of mixing among shells of different composition, and hence the role of magnetic torques and convection in transporting angular momentum. Here we show that early-time afterglow observations with the Swift satellite place constraints on the allowed GRB pre-supernova models. In particular, they argue against pre-supernova models in which different elemental shells are unmix…
As evidenced by the coincident detections of GW170817 and GRB 170817A, short gamma-ray bursts are likely associated with neutron star-neutron star merger events. Although rare, some bursts display episodes of early emission, with precursor flares being observed up to $\sim 10$ seconds prior to the main burst. As the stars inspiral due to gravitational wave emission, the exertion of mutual tidal forces leads to the excitation of stellar oscillation modes, which may come into resonance with the orbital motion. Mode amplitudes increase substantially during a period of resonance as tidal energy is…
We present evidence for Quasi Periodic Oscillations (QPOs) in the recurrent outburst activity from SGR 1806-20 using Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) observations during November 1996. Searching for QPOs in a sample of 30 bursts at similar frequencies to those previously reported in the December 27, 2004 giant flare, we find evidence for a QPO in a burst at 648 Hz at 5.17σ confidence level, lying within 3.75% from the 625 Hz QPO discovered in the giant flare. Two additional features are also detected around 84 and 103 Hz in two other bursts at 4.2σ and 4.8σ confidence level, respectively, wh…
Significant undulations appear in the light curve of a recently discovered super-luminous supernova (SLSN) SN 2015bn after the first peak, while the underlying profile of the light curve can be well explained by a continuous energy supply from a central engine, possibly the spin-down of a millisecond magnetar. We propose that these undulations are caused by an intermittent pulsed energy supply, indicating an energetic flare activity of the central engine of the SLSN. Many post-burst flares were discovered during X-ray afterglow observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). We find that the SLSN fla…
We present evidence for Quasi-Periodic Oscillations (QPOs) in the recurrent outburst emission from the soft gamma repeater SGR 1806-20 using NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) observations. By searching a sample of 30 bursts for timing signals at the frequencies of the QPOs discovered in the 2004 December 27 giant flare from the source, we find three QPOs at 84, 103, and 648 Hz in three different bursts. The first two QPOs lie within $\sim$ 1$\: σ$ from the 92 Hz QPO detected in the giant flare. The third QPO lie within $\sim$ 9$\: σ$ from the 625 Hz QPO also detected in the same flare.…
Well-sampled optical lightcurves of 146 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are compiled from the literature. By empirical fitting we identify eight possible emission components and summarize the results in a "synthetic" lightcurve. Both optical flare and early shallow-decay components are likely related to long-term central engine activities. We focus on their statistical properties in this paper. Twenty-four optical flares are obtained from 19 GRBs. The isotropic R-band energy is smaller than 1% of $E_{γ, \rm iso}$. The relation between isotropic luminosities of the flares and gamma-rays follows $L^{\rm…
A Search for Rotation Measure Flare Candidates in Repeating Fast Radio Bursts
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；State Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy and Technology, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台射电天文与技术重点实验室）
One longstanding mystery in bio-evolution since Darwin's time is the origin of the Cambrian explosion that happened around 540 million years ago (Mya), where an extremely rapid increase of species occurred. Here we suggest that a nearby GRB event ~500 parsecs away, which should occur about once per 5 Gy, might have triggered the Cambrian explosion. Due to a relatively lower cross section and the conservation of photon number in Compton scattering, a substantial fraction of the GRB photons can reach the sea level and would induce DNA mutations in organisms protected by a shallow layer of water …
In this paper we shed light on late time (i.e. with peak time t_{pk} \gtrsim 1000 s) flaring activity. We address the morphology and energetic of flares in the window \sim 10^3-10^6 s to put constraints on the temporal evolution of the flare properties and to identify possible differences in the mechanism producing the early and late time flaring emission, if any. This requires the complete understanding of the observational biases affecting the detection of X-ray flares superimposed on a fading continuum at t > 1000 s. We consider all the Swift GRBs that exhibit late time flares. Our sample c…
Gamma-ray burst X-ray flares are believed to mark the late time activity of the central engine. We compute the temporal evolution of the average flare luminosity $< L >$ in the common rest frame energy band of 44 GRBs taken from the large \emph{Swift} 5-years data base. Our work highlights the importance of a proper consideration of the threshold of detection of flares against the contemporaneous continuous X-ray emission. In the time interval $30 \rm{s}<t<1000\,\rm{s}$ we find $< L >\propto t^{-2.7\pm 0.1}$; this implies that the flare isotropic energy scaling is $E_{\rm{iso,flare}}\propto t^…
We analyse archival data from the Parkes radio telescope which was observing a location 35.6$^\circ$ away from SGR 1806-20 during its giant $γ$-ray flare of 2004 December 27. We show that no FRB-like burst counterpart was detected, and set a radio limit of 110\,MJy at 1.4 GHz, including the estimated 70\,dB suppression of the signal due to its location in the far side lobe of Parkes and the predicted scattering from the interstellar medium. The upper limit for the magnetar giant flare radio to $γ$-ray fluence ratio is $η_\mathrm{SGR} \lesssim 10^{7}\,\mathrm{Jy\,ms\,erg^{-1}\,cm^{2}}$. Based o…
The excess of the rate of type I X-ray bursts over that expected when the matter fallen between bursts completely burns out in a thermonuclear explosion is explained in terms of the model of a spreading layer of matter coming from the accretion disk over the neutron star surface. Such excess is observed in bursters with a high persistent luminosity, $4\times 10^{36}\ \mbox{erg s}^{-1}\leq L_{X}\leq 2\times 10^{37}\ \mbox{erg s}^{-1}$. In this model the accreting matter settles to the stellar surface mainly in two high-latitude ring zones. Despite the subsequent spreading of matter over the ent…
We develop a model of early X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts originating from the reverse shock (RS) propagating through ultra-relativistic, highly magnetized pulsar-like winds produced by long-lasting central engines. We first perform fluid and MHD numerical simulations of relativistic double explosions. We demonstrate that even for constant properties of the wind a variety of temporal behaviors can be produced, depending on the energy of the initial explosion and the wind power, the delay time for the switch-on of the wind, and magnetization of the wind. X-ray emission of the highly magn…
Hyperactive Magnetar Eruptions: Giant Flares, Baryon Ejections, and Fast Radio Bursts
Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）；Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）；Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics（马克斯·普朗克天体物理学研究所）；Flatiron Institute（平顿研究所）；Monash University（蒙纳士大学）
We consider the long term evolution of debris following the tidal disruption of compact stars in the context of short gamma ray bursts (SGRBs). The initial encounter impulsively creates a hot, dense, neutrino-cooled disk capable of powering the prompt emission. After a long delay, we find that powerful winds are launched from the surface of the disk, driven by the recombination of free nucleons into alpha particles. The associated energy release depletes the mass supply and eventually shuts off activity of the central engine. As a result, the luminosity and mass accretion rate deviate from the…
We present a numerical simulation of a gamma-ray burst jet from a long-lasting engine in the core of a 16 solar mass Wolf-Rayet star. The engine is kept active for 6000 s with a luminosity that decays in time as a power-law with index -5/3. Even though there is no short time-scale variability in the injected engine luminosity, we find that the jet's kinetic luminosity outside the progenitor star is characterized by fluctuations with relatively short time scale. We analyze the temporal characteristics of those fluctuations and we find that they are consistent with the properties of observed fla…
The prompt emission in long gamma-ray bursts arises from within relativistic outflows created during the collapse of massive stars, and the mechanism by which radiation is produced may be either magnetically- or matter-dominated. In this work we suggest an observational test of a magnetically-dominated Poynting flux model that predicts both gamma-ray and low-frequency radio pulses. A common feature among early light curves of long gamma-ray bursts are X-ray flares, which have been shown to arise from sites internal to the jet. Ascribing these events to the prompt emission, we take an establish…
Classifying optical (out)bursts in cataclysmic variables: the distinct observational characteristics of dwarf novae, micronovae, stellar flares and magnetic gating
A detailed analysis of the GBM/Fermi experiment data is carried out to classify GRB 200415A. It is shown that, on the one hand, this event exhibits typical for type I (short) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) properties, such as duration, variability, and the character of spectral evolution (lag). On the other hand, the localization of the event source on the celestial plane, obtained by the triangulation method (IPN), indicates the nearby ($ D_L $ = 3.5 Mpc) galaxy NGC 253 (Sculptor) as a possible host galaxy for this burst. It introduces significant restrictions on the energetics of the event ($ E_{is…
X-ray flares are generally believed to be produced by the reactivation of the central engine, and may have the same energy dissipation mechanism as the prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). X-ray flares can therefore provide important clues to understanding the nature of the central engines of GRBs. In this work, we study for the first time the physical connection between differential size and return distributions of X-ray flares of GRBs with known redshifts. We find that the differential distributions of duration, energy, and waiting time can be well fitted by a power-law function. In p…
The many similarities between the prompt emission pulses in gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and X-ray flares during the fast decay and afterglow phases of GRBs suggest a common origin. In the cannonball (CB) model of GRBs, this common origin is mass accretion episodes of fall-back matter on a newly born compact object. The prompt emission pulses are produced by a bipolar jet of highly relativistic plasmoids (CBs) ejected in the early, major episodes of mass accretion. As the accretion material is consumed, one may expect the engine's activity to weaken. X-ray flares ending the prompt emission and duri…
In some short gamma-ray bursts, precursor flares occurring $\sim$ seconds prior to the main episode have been observed. These flares may then be associated with the last few cycles of the inspiral when the orbital frequency is a few hundred Hz. During these final cycles, tidal forces can resonantly excite quasi-normal modes in the inspiralling stars, leading to a rapid increase in their amplitude. It has been shown that these modes can exert sufficiently strong strains onto the neutron star crust to instigate yieldings. Due to the typical frequencies of $g$-modes being $\sim 100\text{ Hz}$, th…
