Measuring the neutron star tidal deformability with equation-of-state-independent relations and gravitational waves

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to improve measurements of neutron star tidal deformability from gravitational waves by assuming a universal equation of state, using a relation between deformabilities based on mass ratios.

Contribution

The paper presents a new approach that leverages equation-of-state-independent relations to enhance tidal deformability inference in gravitational wave data analysis.

Findings

Uncertainty in tidal parameters reduced by a factor of 2 to 10.

Method effectively incorporates physical constraints into gravitational wave analysis.

Improves accuracy of neutron star matter property measurements.

Abstract

Gravitational wave measurements of binary neutron star coalescences offer information about the properties of the extreme matter that comprises the stars. Despite our expectation that all neutron stars in the Universe obey the same equation of state, i.e. the properties of the matter that forms them are universal, current tidal inference analyses treat the two bodies as independent. We present a method to measure the effect of tidal interactions in the gravitational wave signal -- and hence constrain the equation of state -- that assumes that the two binary components obey the same equation of state. Our method makes use of a relation between the tidal deformabilities of the two stars given the ratio of their masses, a relation that has been shown to only have a weak dependance on the equation of state. We use this relation to link the tidal deformabilities of the two stars in a realistic parameter inference study while simultaneously marginalizing over the error in the relation. This approach incorporates more physical information into our analysis, thus leading to a better measurement of tidal effects in gravitational wave signals. Through simulated signals we estimate that uncertainties in the measured tidal parameters are reduced by a factor of at least 2 -- and in some cases up to 10 -- depending on the equation of state and mass ratio of the system.