Gravitational wave signals in the deci-Hz range from neutrinos during the proto-neutron star cooling phase

TL;DR

This paper models low-frequency gravitational waves produced by anisotropic neutrino emissions during proto-neutron star cooling, exploring their detectability by future GW detectors like DECIGO.

Contribution

It introduces a formulation for GW signals from neutrino anisotropies during PNS cooling, considering multiple emission models and rotation effects, which has not been comprehensively studied before.

Findings

Decay times can be inferred from GW strain features.

Rotation of PNS affects GW waveforms.

Signals may be detectable by DECIGO at 10 kpc.

Abstract

We investigate the gravitational waves (GWs) at low frequencies produced by neutrinos that are emitted anisotropically from the proto-neutron star (PNS) during its cooling phase that lasts about a minute. We first give a formulation based on the spherical-harmonic expansion of the neutrino luminosity to obtain the gravitational waveform as well as the characteristic strain. In the absence of multi-dimensional simulations of PNS cooling, from which we can extract reliable data on the neutrino luminosities as a function of solid angle, we construct them by hand. In the first model, the time evolution is approximated by piece-wise exponential functions (PEFs); in the second model we employ the time evolution obtained in a 1D cooling simulation for all harmonic components for simplicity; In both cases, we consider not only axisymmetric components but also non-axisymmetric ones; for the latter, in particular, we consider as the third model axisymetric neutrino emissions that are misaligned with the rotation axis and, as a result, rotate with the PNS. We find from the first model that the decay times in PEF at late phases can be inferred from the positions of bumps and dips in the characteristic strain of the GW in the case of a slow cooling, whereas it may be obtained by identifying the positions of slope change in the case of rapid cooling, which may be induced by convections in PNS. We also find from the first model that the rotation of PNS can be reflected in GW waveforms. Finally, we compared the characteristic strains with sensitivity curves GW detectors, finding that above phenomena are expected to be detected by DECIGO if the PNS is located at 10kpc.