Equation-of-state insensitive relations after GW170817

Zack Carson, Katerina Chatziioannou, Carl-Johan Haster, Kent Yagi, and Nicolás Yunes
Phys. Rev. D 99, 083016 – Published 30 April 2019

Abstract

The thermodynamic relation between pressure and density (i.e., the equation of state) of cold supranuclear matter is critical in describing neutron stars, yet it remains one of the largest uncertainties in nuclear physics. The extraction of tidal deformabilities from the gravitational waves emitted in the coalescence of neutron star binaries, such as GW170817, is a promising tool to probe this thermodynamic relation. Equation-of-state insensitive relations between symmetric and antisymmetric combinations of individual tidal deformabilities, the so-called “binary Love relations”, have proven important to infer the radius of neutron stars, and thus constrain the equation of state, from such gravitational waves. A similar set of relations between the moment of inertia, the tidal deformability, the quadrupole moment, and the compactness of neutron stars, the so-called “I-Love-Q” and “C-Love” relations, allow for future tests of General Relativity in the extreme gravity regime. But even the most insensitive of such relations still presents some degree of equation-of-state variability that could introduce systematic uncertainties in parameter extraction and in model selection. We here reduce this variability by more than 50% by imposing a prior on the allowed set of equations of state, derived from the posteriors generated from the analysis of GW170817. The resulting increase in insensitivity reduces systematic uncertainties in the extraction of the tidal deformability from future gravitational wave observations, although statistical uncertainties currently dominate the error budget, and will continue to do so until the era of Voyager-class detectors.

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  • Received 8 March 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.99.083016

© 2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & AstrophysicsNuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Zack Carson1, Katerina Chatziioannou2, Carl-Johan Haster3, Kent Yagi1, and Nicolás Yunes4

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA
  • 2Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, 162 5th Ave, New York, New York 10010, USA
  • 3LIGO Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 4eXtreme Gravity Institute, Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 59717, USA

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Issue

Vol. 99, Iss. 8 — 15 April 2019

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