Measurability of neutron star tidal deformability from merging neutron star-black hole binaries

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how accurately the tidal deformability of neutron stars can be measured from gravitational-wave signals in neutron star-black hole mergers, highlighting significant improvements with next-generation detectors.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of parameter estimation errors for neutron star tidal deformability using Fisher matrix methods across current and future GW detector networks.

Findings

Cosmic Explorer can measure $\lambda_{ m NS}$ about 15 times more accurately than advanced LIGO.

3G detector networks can improve measurement precision of $\lambda_{ m NS}$ by a factor of 10 over 2G networks.

Measurement errors vary with source parameters and detector configurations, affecting the detectability of neutron star tidal effects.

Abstract

The neutron star-black hole binary (NSBH) system has been considered one of the promising detection candidates for ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors such as LIGO and Virgo. The tidal effects of neutron stars (NSs) are imprinted on the GW signals emitted from NSBHs as well as binary neutron stars. In this work, we study how accurately the parameter $\lambda_{\rm NS}$ can be measured in GW parameter estimation for NSBH signals. We set the parameter range for the NSBH sources to $[4M_{\odot}, 10M_{\odot}]$ for the black hole mass, $[1M_{\odot}, 2M_{\odot}]$ for the NS mass, and $[-0.9, 0.9]$ for the dimensionless black hole spin. For realistic populations of sources distributed in different parameter spaces, we calculate the measurement errors of $\lambda_{\rm NS}$ ($\sigma_{\lambda_{\rm NS}}$) using the Fisher matrix method. In particular, we perform a single-detector analysis using the advanced LIGO and the Cosmic Explorer detectors and a multi-detector analysis using the 2G (advanced LIGO-Hanford, advanced LIGO-Livingstone, advanced Virgo, and KAGRA) and the 3G (Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer) networks. We show the distribution of $\sigma_{\lambda_{\rm NS}}$ for the population of sources as a one-dimensional probability density function. Our result shows that the probability density function curves are similar in shape between advanced LIGO and Cosmic Explorer, but Cosmic Explorer can achieve $\sim 15$ times better accuracy overall in the measurement of $\lambda_{\rm NS}$. In the case of the network detectors, the probability density functions are maximum at $\sigma_{\lambda_{\rm NS}} \sim 130$ and $\sim 4$ for the 2G and the 3G networks, respectively, and the 3G network can achieve $\sim 10$ times better accuracy overall.