No Arabic abstract
The thermodynamical properties of the equation of state (EoS) of high-density matter (above nuclear saturation density) and the possible existence of exotic states such as phase transitions from nuclear/hadronic matter into quark-gluon plasma, or the appearance of hyperons, may critically influence the stability and dynamics of compact relativistic stars. From a theoretical point of view, establishing the existence of those states requires the analysis of the `convexity of the EoS. We show indications of the existence of regions in the dense-matter EoS where the thermodynamics may be non-convex as a result of a non-monotonic dependence of the sound speed with the rest-mass density. When this happens, non-conventional dynamics may develop. In this paper we investigate the effects of a phenomenological, non-convex EoS on the equilibrium structure of stable compact stars and on the dynamics of unstable neutron stars that collapse gravitationally to black holes, both for spherically symmetric and uniformly-rotating configurations. We show how the dynamics of the collapse with a non-convex EoS departs from the convex case, leaving distinctive imprints on the gravitational waveforms. The astrophysical significance of these results for microphysical EoSs is discussed.
The fastest-spinning neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries, despite having undergone millions of years of accretion, have been observed to spin well below the Keplerian break-up frequency. We simulate the spin evolution of synthetic populations of accreting neutron stars in order to assess whether gravitational waves can explain this behaviour and provide the distribution of spins that is observed. We model both persistent and transient accretion and consider two gravitational-wave-production mechanisms that could be present in these systems: thermal mountains and unstable $r$-modes. We consider the case of no gravitational-wave emission and observe that this does not match well with observation. We find evidence for gravitational waves being able to provide the observed spin distribution; the most promising mechanisms being a permanent quadrupole, thermal mountains and unstable $r$-modes. However, based on the resultant distributions alone it is difficult to distinguish between the competing mechanisms.
We show how observations of gravitational waves from binary neutron star (BNS) mergers over the next few years can be combined with insights from nuclear physics to obtain useful constraints on the equation of state (EoS) of dense matter, in particular, constraining the neutron-matter EoS to within 20% between one and two times the nuclear saturation density $n_0approx 0.16 {text{fm}^{-3}}$. Using Fisher information methods, we combine observational constraints from simulated BNS merger events drawn from various population models with independent measurements of the neutron star radii expected from x-ray astronomy (the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) observations in particular) to directly constrain nuclear physics parameters. To parameterize the nuclear EoS, we use a different approach, expanding from pure nuclear matter rather than from symmetric nuclear matter to make use of recent quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations. This method eschews the need to invoke the so-called parabolic approximation to extrapolate from symmetric nuclear matter, allowing us to directly constrain the neutron-matter EoS. Using a principal component analysis, we identify the combination of parameters most tightly constrained by observational data. We discuss sensitivity to various effects such as different component masses through population-model sensitivity, phase transitions in the core EoS, and large deviations from the central parameter values.
We present a rapid analytic framework for predicting kilonova light curves following neutron star (NS) mergers, where the main input parameters are binary-based properties measurable by gravitational wave detectors (chirp mass and mass ratio, orbital inclination) and properties dependent on the nuclear equation of state (tidal deformability, maximum NS mass). This enables synthesis of a kilonova sample for any NS source population, or determination of the observing depth needed to detect a live kilonova given gravitational wave source parameters in low latency. We validate this code, implemented in the public MOSFiT package, by fitting it to GW170817. A Bayes factor analysis overwhelmingly ($B>10^{10}$) favours the inclusion of an additional luminosity source in addition to lanthanide-poor dynamical ejecta during the first day. This is well fit by a shock-heated cocoon model, though differences in the ejecta structure, opacity or nuclear heating rate cannot be ruled out as alternatives. The emission thereafter is dominated by a lanthanide-rich viscous wind. We find the mass ratio of the binary is $q=0.92pm0.07$ (90% credible interval). We place tight constraints on the maximum stable NS mass, $M_{rm TOV}=2.17^{+0.08}_{-0.11}$ M$_odot$. For a uniform prior in tidal deformability, the radius of a 1.4 M$_odot$ NS is $R_{1.4}sim 10.7$ km. Re-weighting with a prior based on equations of state that support our credible range in $M_{rm TOV}$, we derive a final measurement $R_{1.4}=11.06^{+1.01}_{-0.98}$ km. Applying our code to the second gravitationally-detected neutron star merger, GW190425, we estimate that an associated kilonova would have been fainter (by $sim0.7$ mag at one day post-merger) and declined faster than GW170817, underlining the importance of tuning follow-up strategies individually for each GW-detected NS merger.
In the past few years, new observations of neutron stars and neutron-star mergers have provided a wealth of data that allow one to constrain the equation of state of nuclear matter at densities above nuclear saturation density. However, most observations were based on neutron stars with masses of about 1.4 solar masses, probing densities up to $sim$ 3-4 times the nuclear saturation density. Even higher densities are probed inside massive neutron stars such as PSR J0740+6620. Very recently, new radio observations provided an update to the mass estimate for PSR J0740+6620 and X-ray observations by the NICER and XMM telescopes constrained its radius. Based on these new measurements, we revisit our previous nuclear-physics multi-messenger astrophysics constraints and derive updated constraints on the equation of state describing the neutron-star interior. By combining astrophysical observations of two radio pulsars, two NICER measurements, the two gravitational-wave detections GW170817 and GW190425, detailed modeling of the kilonova AT2017gfo, as well as the gamma-ray burst GRB170817A, we are able to estimate the radius of a typical 1.4-solar mass neutron star to be $11.94^{+0.76}_{-0.87} rm{km}$ at 90% confidence. Our analysis allows us to revisit the upper bound on the maximum mass of neutron stars and disfavours the presence of a strong first-order phase transition from nuclear matter to exotic forms of matter, such as quark matter, inside neutron stars.
Recent core-collapse supernova (CCSN) simulations have predicted several distinct features in gravitational-wave (GW) spectrograms, including a ramp-up signature due to the g-mode oscillation of the proto-neutron star (PNS) and an excess in the low-frequency domain (100-300 Hz) potentially induced by the standing accretion shock instability (SASI). These predictions motivated us to perform a sophisticated time-frequency analysis (TFA) of the GW signals, aimed at preparation for future observations. By reanalyzing a gravitational waveform obtained in a three-dimensional general-relativistic CCSN simulation, we show that both the spectrogram with an adequate window and the quadratic TFA separate the multimodal GW signatures much more clearly compared with the previous analysis. We find that the observed low-frequency excess during the SASI active phase is divided into two components, a stronger one at 130 Hz and an overtone at 260 Hz, both of which evolve quasi-statically during the simulation time. We also identify a new mode whose frequency varies from 700 to 600 Hz. Furthermore, we develop the quadratic TFA for the Stokes I, Q, U, and V parameters as a new tool to investigate the GW circular polarization. We demonstrate that the polarization states that randomly change with time after bounce are associated with the PNS g-mode oscillation, whereas a slowly changing polarization state in the low-frequency domain is connected to the PNS core oscillation. This study demonstrates the capability of the sophisticated TFA for diagnosing the polarized CCSN GWs in order to explore their complex nature.