Electromagnetic precursors to black hole - neutron star gravitational wave events: Flares and reconnection-powered fast-radio transients from the late inspiral

Abstract: The presence of magnetic fields in the late inspiral of black hole -- neutron star binaries could lead to potentially detectable electromagnetic precursor transients. Using general-relativistic force-free electrodynamics simulations, we investigate pre-merger interactions of the common magnetosphere of black hole -- neutron star systems. We demonstrate that these systems can feature copious electromagnetic flaring activity, which we find depends on the magnetic field orientation but not on black hole spin. Due to interactions with the surrounding magnetosphere, these flares could lead to Fast Radio Burst-like transients and X-ray emission, with $\mathcal{L}{\rm EM} \lesssim 10^{41} \left( B\ast/ 10^{12}\, \rm G \right)^2\, \rm erg/ s$ as an upper bound for the luminosity, where $B_\ast$ is the magnetic field strength on the surface of the neutron star.