Tidal Deformability from GW170817 as a Direct Probe of the Neutron Star Radius
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Univ Arizona, Steward Observ, Dept AstronIssue Date
2018-04-20
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IOP PUBLISHING LTDCitation
Carolyn A. Raithel et al 2018 ApJL 857 L23Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERSRights
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Gravitational waves from the coalescence of two neutron stars were recently detected for the first time by the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration, in event GW170817. This detection placed an upper limit on the effective tidal deformability of the two neutron stars and tightly constrained the chirp mass of the system. We report here on a new simplification that arises in the effective tidal deformability of the binary, when the chirp mass is specified. We find that, in this case, the effective tidal deformability of the binary is surprisingly independent of the component masses of the individual neutron stars, and instead depends primarily on the ratio of the chirp mass to the neutron star radius. Thus, a measurement of the effective tidal deformability can be used to directly measure the neutron star radius. We find that the upper limit on the effective tidal deformability from GW170817 implies that the radius cannot be larger than similar to 13. km, at the 90% level, independent of the assumed masses for the component stars. The result can be applied generally, to probe the stellar radii in any neutron star-neutron star merger with a measured chirp mass. The approximate mass independence disappears for neutron star- black hole mergers. Finally, we discuss a Bayesian inference of the equation of state that uses the measured chirp mass and tidal deformability from GW170817 combined with nuclear and astrophysical priors and discuss possible statistical biases in this inference.ISSN
2041-8213Version
Final published versionSponsors
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program [DGE-1143953]; NASA grant [NNX16AC56G]Additional Links
http://stacks.iop.org/2041-8205/857/i=2/a=L23?key=crossref.4aaafd6a8d6191e2ff0921c2c869a47aae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3847/2041-8213/aabcbf