Continuous Gravitational Waves from Isolated Galactic Neutron Stars in the Advanced Detector Era

TL;DR

This paper develops a framework to assess the detectability of gravitational waves from isolated Galactic neutron stars, considering their electromagnetic and gravitational wave emissions, and bounds on their physical parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a combined analytic and numerical framework to evaluate the detectability and parameter bounds of neutron stars in gravitational wave searches.

Findings

Framework for assessing neutron star detectability

Bounds on magnetic field strength and ellipticity

Estimates of gravitational wave emission from neutron stars

Abstract

We consider a simulated population of isolated Galactic neutron stars. The rotational frequency of each neutron star evolves through a combination of electromagnetic and gravitational wave emission. The magnetic field strength dictates the dipolar emission, and the ellipticity (a measure of a neutron star's deformation) dictates the gravitational wave emission. Through both analytic and numerical means, we assess the detectability of the Galactic neutron star population and bound the magnetic field strength and ellipticity parameter space of Galactic neutron stars with or without a direct gravitational wave detection. While our simulated population is primitive, this work establishes a framework by which future efforts can be conducted.