Measuring the neutron star equation of state with gravitational wave observations

By J. Read, Charalampos Markakis, M. Shibata, K. Uryū, Jolien D. E. Creighton, J. Friedman. 2009

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We report the results of a first study that uses numerical simulations to estimate the accuracy with which one can use gravitational wave observations of double neutron-star inspiral to measure parameters of the neutron-star equation of state. The simulations use the evolution and initial-data codes of Shibata and Uryu to compute the last several orbits and the merger of neutron stars, with matter described by a parametrized equation of state. Previous work suggested the use of an effective cutoff frequency to place constraints on the equation of state. We find, however, that greater accuracy is obtained by measuring departures from the point-particle limit of the gravitational waveform produced during the late inspiral. As the stars approach their final plunge and merger, the gravitational wave phase accumulates more rapidly for smaller values of the neutron-star compactness (the ratio of the mass of the neutron-star to its radius). We estimate that realistic equations of state will lead to gravitational waveforms that are distinguishable from point-particle inspirals at an effective distance (the distance to an optimally oriented and located system that would produce an equivalent waveform amplitude) of 100 Mpc or less. As Lattimer and Prakash observed, neutron-star radius is closely tied tomore » the pressure at density not far above nuclear. Our results suggest that broadband gravitational wave observations at frequencies between 500 and 1000 Hz will constrain this pressure, and we estimate the accuracy with which it can be measured. Related first estimates of radius measurability show that the radius can be determined to an accuracy of {delta}R{approx}1 km at 100 Mpc.« less

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fa3a8e4a612b1f07ae2799f44650d8fa62381bfb

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Citations in the corpus

Tidal Deformability from GW170817 as a Direct Probe of the Neutron Star Radius (2018, background): “In one of the first quantitative studies exploring EOS effects on the waveform from the coalescence of two neutron stars, Read et al. (2009b) showed that a realistic waveform would deviate significantly from a point-particle waveform and that this could be observed with Advanced LIGO.”
Delayed outflows from black hole accretion tori following neutron star binary coalescence (2013, background): “…properties of the merging binary (e.g., Ajith et al. 2007; van der Sluys et al. 2008); a potential probe of the equation of state of dense matter (e.g., Faber et al. 2002; Shibata 2005; Read et al. 2009; Bauswein et al. 2012); and even a test of General Relativity itself (e.g. Cornish et al. 2011).”
Gravitational waves from neutron star mergers and their relation to the nuclear equation of state (2019, methodology): “ough the tidal deformability coecient dened as the proportionality constant between the external tidal eld E ij (the eld generated by the companion star) and the quadrupole moment of the star Q ij [68, 69, 70, 71, 326]: Q ij = E ij: (5) However, tidal deformations are more usefully described through”
Properties of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817 (2018, methodology): “Finally, we also choose (iv) a stiffer parametrized EOS that is sometimes used in NR simulations, H [172], which is near the maximum allowed”
GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs (2018, methodology): “For reference, we also show contours for a representative subset of theoretical EOS models given by piecewise-polytrope fits from [189].”
Gravitational waves and non-axisymmetric oscillation modes in mergers of compact object binaries (2011, background): “In combination with the additional knowledge of the characteristics of the compact objects from the detection of the inspiral signal (see Read et al. (2009) and references therein), the determination of at least two independent oscillation frequencies shouldallow for the application of the theory…”