Searching for exotic cores with binary neutron star inspirals

TL;DR

This paper assesses the potential of gravitational-wave detectors to identify exotic cores in neutron stars during mergers, showing that a relatively small number of detections can confirm or exclude such models.

Contribution

It demonstrates the feasibility of detecting or ruling out exotic cores in neutron stars using current gravitational-wave observations.

Findings

Exotic cores can be confirmed with ~70% confidence with tens of detections.

Some exotic core models can be excluded with high confidence.

Detection confidence increases with the number of observed mergers.

Abstract

We study the feasibility of detecting exotic cores in merging neutron stars with ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. We focus on models with a sharp nuclear/exotic matter interface, and assume a uniform distribution of neutron stars in the mass range $[1,2] M_\odot$. We find that the existence of exotic cores can be confirmed at the 70% confidence level with as few as several tens of detections. Likewise, with such a sample, we find that some models of exotic cores can be excluded {with high confidence}.