Can we measure the collapse time of a post-merger remnant for a future GW170817-like event?

Understand

Measuring the collapse time of a binary neutron star merger remnant can inform the physics of extreme matter and improve modelling of short gamma-ray bursts and associated kilonova.

• The lifetime of the post-merger remnant directly impacts the mechanisms available for the jet launch of short gamma-ray bursts.
• We develop and test a method to measure the collapse time of post-merger remnants.
• We show that for a GW170817-like event at $\sim\!40\,$Mpc, a network of Einstein Telescope with Cosmic Explorer is required to detect collapse times of $\sim\!10\,$ms.