A unified study of nuclear physics and dark matter constraints through gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron star mergers

TL;DR

This study explores how gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron star mergers can simultaneously constrain nuclear physics and dark matter properties, highlighting the potential and limitations of future detectors.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for analyzing synthetic gravitational-wave data to assess nuclear and dark matter constraints, considering systematic biases and degeneracies.

Findings

Combining observations tightens nuclear parameter constraints.

Dark matter presence minimally affects the ability to detect dark matter.

Systematic biases are expected to be negligible even with next-generation detectors.

Abstract

Understanding the properties of strongly interacting matter at extreme densities is a central problem in fundamental physics, but neutron star mergers provide a natural laboratory for probing this regime. However, the complexity of the merger process complicates the interpretation of the associated gravitational-wave and electromagnetic signals. This picture becomes even more complex in the potential scenario in which dark matter accumulates around and in neutron stars, altering their structure and the associated observables. In this work, we study synthetic gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron star mergers with next-generation detectors, investigating their potential to extract both nuclear physics and dark-matter constraints. We also examine how the potential presence of fermionic, non-interacting dark matter inside neutron stars affects the inference of nuclear empirical parameters. We find that combining observations can tighten constraints on nuclear empirical parameters. However, the inferred values remain sensitive to systematic modeling biases and intrinsic degeneracies among the parameters. Conversely, our analysis reveals that even in the presence of dark matter, it will be unlikely to find decisive evidence for dark matter when analyzing gravitational-wave signals. Consequently, systematic biases in nuclear empirical parameter inference potentially resulting from the presence of dark matter are expected to be negligible even for observations with next-generation gravitational-wave detectors.