Using multi-messenger observations of neutron star crust-shattering events to measure the material properties of the crust.*

In the new era of multimessenger astronomy - combining electromagnetic observations with, for example, gravitational wave observations - big strides have been made understanding the inspiral and merger of binary neutron stars. We can now robustly identify binary neutron star mergers with short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs). In a small number of cases, precursor gamma-ray flares have been detected a few seconds before the sGRB. One possible explanation is that these arise from the shattering of the solid neutron star crust caused by resonant excitation of crust oscillations by the tidal field of the companion neutron star. We show here how, under this hypothesis, if we detect precursor flare and the gravitational wave signal of the inspiral together, we can make a measurement of the material properties of the crust and the underlying nuclear physics.