Matter Effects on LIGO/Virgo Searches for Gravitational Waves from Merging Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates how matter effects in neutron stars could influence gravitational wave detection, finding that larger neutron star radii and low chirp masses could cause significant signal loss in LIGO/Virgo searches.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of matter effects on gravitational wave signals from merging neutron stars at LIGO/Virgo sensitivities.

Findings

Matter effects can cause up to 10% signal loss in extreme cases.

Significant impact occurs for neutron star radii larger than 14-16 km.

Low chirp mass binaries are more affected by matter effects.

Abstract

Gravitational waves from merging neutron stars are expected to be observed in the next 5 years. We explore the potential impact of matter effects on gravitational waves from merging double neutron-star binaries. If neutron star binaries exist with chirp masses less than roughly 1 solar mass and typical neutron-star radii are larger than roughly 14 km, or if neutron-star radii are larger than 15-16 km for the chirp masses of galactic neutron-star binaries, then matter will have a significant impact on the effectiveness of a point-particle-based search at Advanced LIGO design sensitivity (roughly 5% additional loss of signals). In a configuration typical of LIGO's first observing run, extreme matter effects lead to up to 10% potential loss in the most extreme cases.