Gravitational wave background from neutron star phase transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stochastic gravitational wave background generated by neutron stars undergoing a hadron-quark phase transition, analyzing its amplitude, frequency range, and potential detectability with Advanced LIGO.

Contribution

It presents a new estimation of the gravitational wave background from neutron star phase transitions and assesses its detectability with current gravitational wave observatories.

Findings

Maximum amplitude of $h_{BG} \, \sim 10^{-24}$ in the 20-2000 Hz range

Potential detection with correlated Advanced LIGO signals

Background generated by neutron stars forming up to redshift z~20

Abstract

We study the generation of a stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background produced by a population of neutron stars (NSs) which go over a hadron-quark phase transition in its inner shells. We obtain, for example, that the NS phase transition, in cold dark matter scenarios, could generate a stochastic GW background with a maximum amplitude of $h_{\rm BG} \sim 10^{-24}$, in the frequency band $\nu_{\rm{obs}} \simeq 20-2000 {\rm Hz}$ for stars forming at redshifts of up to $z\simeq 20.$ We study the possibility of detection of this isotropic GW background by correlating signals of a pair of Advanced LIGO observatories.