Can we distinguish low mass black holes in neutron star binaries?

TL;DR

This paper examines whether gravitational wave signals from low mass black hole-neutron star binaries can be distinguished from binary neutron star mergers, highlighting challenges due to uncertainties in neutron star physics and detector sensitivities.

Contribution

It analyzes the difficulty of differentiating low mass black hole-neutron star mergers from neutron star binaries using current and future gravitational wave detectors, considering astrophysical and observational factors.

Findings

Degeneracy exists between neutron star and black hole-neutron star signals due to equation of state uncertainties.

Third-generation detectors could help break degeneracy by observing late inspiral and post-merger signals.

Electromagnetic counterparts may not reliably distinguish the two types of mergers.

Abstract

The detection of gravitational waves from coalescing binary neutron stars represents another milestone in gravitational-wave astronomy. However, since LIGO is currently not as sensitive to the merger/ringdown part of the waveform, the possibility that such signals are produced by a black hole-neutron star binary can not be easily ruled out without appealing to assumptions about the underlying compact object populations. We review a few astrophysical channels that might produce black holes below 3 $M_{\odot}$ (roughly the upper bound on the maximum mass of a neutron star), as well as existing constraints for these channels. We show that, due to the uncertainty in the neutron star equation of state, it is difficult to distinguish gravitational waves from a binary neutron star system, from those of a black hole-neutron star system with the same component masses, assuming Advanced LIGO sensitivity. This degeneracy can be broken by accumulating statistics from many events to better constrain the equation of state, or by third-generation detectors with higher sensitivity to the late spiral to post-merger signal. We also discuss the possible differences in electromagnetic counterparts between binary neutron star and low mass black hole-neutron star mergers, arguing that it will be challenging to definitively distinguish the two without better understanding of the underlying astrophysical processes.