Tidal Love Numbers of Neutron and Self-Bound Quark Stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tidal Love numbers, which influence gravitational wave signals from neutron star mergers, differ between normal neutron stars and self-bound strange quark matter stars, potentially allowing their distinction.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Love numbers vary significantly between neutron stars and strange quark stars, offering a method to differentiate these compact objects through gravitational wave observations.

Findings

Love numbers differ markedly between neutron and strange quark stars

Tidal effects can help constrain star radii and internal structure

Potential to distinguish star types via gravitational wave data

Abstract

Gravitational waves from the final stages of inspiralling binary neutron stars are expected to be one of the most important sources for ground-based gravitational wave detectors. The masses of the components are determinable from the orbital and chirp frequencies during the early part of the evolution during which tidal effects provide small correction; however, during this phase the signal is relatively clean. The accumulated phase shift due to tidal corrections is characterized by a single quantity, the Love number, which is sensitive to the compactness parameter M/R and the star's internal structure, and its determination could constrain the star's radius. We show that the Love number of normal neutron stars are much different from those of self-bound strange quark matter stars and could therefore provide an important way to distinguish between these two classes of stars.