Nuclear Physics with Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars Disrupted by Black Holes

Teagan A. Clarke; Lani Chastain; Paul D. Lasky; Eric Thrane

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/acd33b

Nuclear Physics with Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars Disrupted by Black Holes

Teagan A. Clarke, Lani Chastain, Paul D. Lasky, Eric Thrane

School of Physics and Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Gravitational waves from neutron star-black hole (NSBH) mergers that undergo tidal disruption provide a potential avenue to study the equation of state of neutron stars and hence the behavior of matter at its most extreme densities. We present a phenomenological model for the gravitational-wave signature of tidal disruption, which allows us to measure the disruption time. We carry out a study with mock data, assuming an optimistically nearby NSBH event with parameters tuned for measuring the tidal disruption. We show that a two-detector network of 40 km Cosmic Explorer instruments can measure the time of disruption with a precision of ≈0.5 ms, which corresponds to a constraint on the neutron star radius of ≈0.7 km (90% credibility). This radius constraint is wider than the constraint obtained by measuring the tidal deformability of the neutron star of the same system during the inspiral. Moreover, the neutron star radius is likely to be more tightly constrained using binary neutron star mergers. While NSBH mergers are important for the information they provide about stellar and binary astrophysics, they are unlikely to provide insights into nuclear physics beyond what we will already know from binary neutron star mergers.

Original language	English
Article number	L6
Number of pages	7
Journal	The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume	949
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acd33b
Publication status	Published - 1 May 2023

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title = "Nuclear Physics with Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars Disrupted by Black Holes",

abstract = "Gravitational waves from neutron star-black hole (NSBH) mergers that undergo tidal disruption provide a potential avenue to study the equation of state of neutron stars and hence the behavior of matter at its most extreme densities. We present a phenomenological model for the gravitational-wave signature of tidal disruption, which allows us to measure the disruption time. We carry out a study with mock data, assuming an optimistically nearby NSBH event with parameters tuned for measuring the tidal disruption. We show that a two-detector network of 40 km Cosmic Explorer instruments can measure the time of disruption with a precision of ≈0.5 ms, which corresponds to a constraint on the neutron star radius of ≈0.7 km (90% credibility). This radius constraint is wider than the constraint obtained by measuring the tidal deformability of the neutron star of the same system during the inspiral. Moreover, the neutron star radius is likely to be more tightly constrained using binary neutron star mergers. While NSBH mergers are important for the information they provide about stellar and binary astrophysics, they are unlikely to provide insights into nuclear physics beyond what we will already know from binary neutron star mergers.",

author = "Clarke, {Teagan A.} and Lani Chastain and Lasky, {Paul D.} and Eric Thrane",

note = "Funding Information: We thank the referee for helpful suggestions, which improved this manuscript. We thank the Caltech gravitational-wave group, especially Isaac Legred for interesting and helpful discussions about this work. This work is supported through Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence CE170100004, Discovery Projects DP220101610 and DP230103088, and LIEF Project LE210100002. T.A.C. receives support from the Australian Government Research Training Program. The authors are grateful for computational resources provided by the LIGO Laboratory computing cluster at California Institute of Technology supported by National Science Foundation Grants PHY-0757058 and PHY-0823459, and the OzSTAR Australian national facility at Swinburne University of Technology. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.",

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N1 - Funding Information: We thank the referee for helpful suggestions, which improved this manuscript. We thank the Caltech gravitational-wave group, especially Isaac Legred for interesting and helpful discussions about this work. This work is supported through Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence CE170100004, Discovery Projects DP220101610 and DP230103088, and LIEF Project LE210100002. T.A.C. receives support from the Australian Government Research Training Program. The authors are grateful for computational resources provided by the LIGO Laboratory computing cluster at California Institute of Technology supported by National Science Foundation Grants PHY-0757058 and PHY-0823459, and the OzSTAR Australian national facility at Swinburne University of Technology. Publisher Copyright: © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

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N2 - Gravitational waves from neutron star-black hole (NSBH) mergers that undergo tidal disruption provide a potential avenue to study the equation of state of neutron stars and hence the behavior of matter at its most extreme densities. We present a phenomenological model for the gravitational-wave signature of tidal disruption, which allows us to measure the disruption time. We carry out a study with mock data, assuming an optimistically nearby NSBH event with parameters tuned for measuring the tidal disruption. We show that a two-detector network of 40 km Cosmic Explorer instruments can measure the time of disruption with a precision of ≈0.5 ms, which corresponds to a constraint on the neutron star radius of ≈0.7 km (90% credibility). This radius constraint is wider than the constraint obtained by measuring the tidal deformability of the neutron star of the same system during the inspiral. Moreover, the neutron star radius is likely to be more tightly constrained using binary neutron star mergers. While NSBH mergers are important for the information they provide about stellar and binary astrophysics, they are unlikely to provide insights into nuclear physics beyond what we will already know from binary neutron star mergers.

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Nuclear Physics with Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars Disrupted by Black Holes

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A Transdimensional Approach to Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

Precision cosmic expansion in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy

Australian Partnership in Advanced LIGO+

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