Detectability of bulk viscosity effects on post-merger gravitational wave signals from binary neutron star mergers

Abstract

We investigate bulk viscosity (BV) effects on post-merger gravitational wave (PMGW) signals from binary neutron star (BNS) mergers and their detectability using realistic equation of state (EoS) posteriors constrained by recent progress in gravitational-wave (GW) and X-ray observations, as well as neutron skin thickness measurements. A linear fitting formula based on recent BNS simulations with BV is used to estimate the peak frequency shift of the PMGWs caused by BV effects. Subsequently, we evaluate this peak frequency shift for our set of EoS posterior samples. We use the Fisher information matrix and the dataset of simulated observable events from the ET and CE detector network in an optimistic scenario to estimate the measurement accuracy of the peak frequency. We find that BV effects on PMGWs may be detectable only for EoS models with large values of the symmetry energy slope ($L_{\mathrm{sym}}$), as favored by neutron-skin thickness measurements. Thus, the detection of BV effects on PMGWs itself can provide abundant information about the symmetry energy and its slope. However, BV effects on PMGWs are generally weak and may be observed only in some extreme and optimistic cases. Therefore, observations of PMGWs and their analyses may not be able to provide very accurate measurements of the symmetry energy through BV effects.

Comments: 14 pages, 9 figures