Are neutron stars with crystalline colour superconducting cores interesting for the LIGO experiment?

TL;DR

This paper estimates the maximum deformation of neutron stars with crystalline colour superconducting cores and finds current LIGO data could detect such signals, implying these cores are unlikely to be maximally strained.

Contribution

It provides the first estimate of deformation limits for neutron stars with crystalline colour superconducting cores and compares these with current gravitational-wave detection capabilities.

Findings

LIGO data is sensitive enough to detect signals from such neutron stars.

Neutron stars with maximally strained crystalline cores are unlikely given current data.

The model's uncertainties highlight areas for future refinement.

Abstract

We estimate the maximal deformation that can be sustained by a rotating neutron star with a crystalline colour superconducting quark core. Our results suggest that current gravitational-wave data from LIGO have already reached the level where a detection would have been possible over a wide range of the poorly constrained QCD parameters. This leads to the non-trivial conclusion that compact objects \emph{do not} contain maximally strained colour crystalline cores drawn from this range of parameter space. We discuss the uncertainties associated with our simple model and how it can be improved in the future.