Solving the relativistic inverse stellar problem through gravitational waves observation of binary neutron stars

Tiziano Abdelsalhin, Andrea Maselli, and Valeria Ferrari
Phys. Rev. D 97, 084014 – Published 10 April 2018

Abstract

The LIGO/Virgo Collaboration has recently announced the direct detection of gravitational waves emitted in the coalescence of a neutron star binary. This discovery allows, for the first time, to set new constraints on the behavior of matter at supranuclear density, complementary with those coming from astrophysical observations in the electromagnetic band. In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility of using gravitational signals to solve the relativistic inverse stellar problem, i.e., to reconstruct the parameters of the equation of state (EoS) from measurements of the stellar mass and tidal Love number. We perform Bayesian inference of mock data, based on different models of the star internal composition, modeled through piecewise polytropes. Our analysis shows that the detection of a small number of sources by a network of advanced interferometers would allow to put accurate bounds on the EoS parameters, and to perform a model selection among the realistic equations of state proposed in the literature.

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  • Received 7 December 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.084014

© 2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Tiziano Abdelsalhin1,*, Andrea Maselli2,†, and Valeria Ferrari1,‡

  • 1Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma and Sezione INFN Roma1, P.A. Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy
  • 2CENTRA, Departamento de Fisica, Instituto Superior Tecnico—IST, Universidade de Lisboa—UL, Avenida Rovisco Pais 1, 1049 Lisboa, Portugal

  • *tiziano.abdelsalhin@roma1.infn.it
  • andrea.maselli@tecnico.ulisboa.pt
  • valeria.ferrari@roma1.infn.it

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 8 — 15 April 2018

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