Beyond the Horizon Distance: LIGO-Virgo can Boost Gravitational Wave Detection Rates by Exploiting the Mass Distribution of Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This paper proposes leveraging the narrow mass distribution of neutron stars to improve gravitational wave detection efficiency and reduce computational costs in LIGO-Virgo searches.

Contribution

It introduces a method to optimize template banks based on neutron star mass distribution, enhancing detection rates and reducing computational costs.

Findings

14% increase in detection with optimized template bank

61% increase in detection with further reduction

Significant technical cost improvements

Abstract

The masses of neutron stars in neutron star binaries are observed to fall in a narrow mass range around $\sim 1.33$ M$_{\odot}$. We explore the advantage of focusing on this region of the parameter space in gravitational wave searches. We find that an all-sky (externally triggered) search with optimally reduced template bank is expected to detect $14\%$ ($61\%$) more binary mergers than without the reduction. A reduced template bank can also represent significant improvement in technical cost. We also develop a more detailed search method using binary mass distribution, and find similar sensitivity increase to that due to the reduced template bank.