Gravitational-wave asteroseismology with fundamental modes from compact binary inspirals

Abstract

Gravitational waves (GWs) from binary neutron stars encode unique information about ultra-dense matter through characterisic signatures associated with a variety of phenomena including tidal effects during the inspiral. The main tidal signature depends predominantly on the equation of state (EoS)-related tidal deformability parameter Λ, but at late times is also characterised by the frequency of the star’s fundamental oscillation mode (f-mode). In General Relativity and for nuclear matter, Λ and the f-modes are related by universal relations which may not hold for alternative theories of gravity or exotic matter. Independently measuring Λ and the f-mode frequency enables tests of gravity and the nature of compact binaries. Here we present directly measured constraints on the f-mode frequencies of the companions of GW170817. We also show that future GW detector networks will measure f-mode frequencies to within tens of Hz, enabling precision GW asteroseismology with binary inspiral signals alone.