Analytic Modeling of Tidal Effects in the Relativistic Inspiral of Binary Neutron Stars
Abstract
To detect the gravitational-wave (GW) signal from binary neutron stars and extract information about the equation of state of matter at nuclear density, it is necessary to match the signal with a bank of accurate templates. We present the two longest (to date) general-relativistic simulations of equal-mass binary neutron stars with different compactnesses, C=0.12 and C=0.14, and compare them with a tidal extension of the effective-one-body (EOB) model. The typical numerical phasing errors over the ≃22GW cycles are Δϕ≃±0.24rad. By calibrating only one parameter (representing a higher-order amplification of tidal effects), the EOB model can reproduce, within the numerical error, the two numerical waveforms essentially up to the merger. By contrast, the third post-Newtonian Taylor-T4 approximant with leading-order tidal corrections dephases with respect to the numerical waveforms by several radians.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.261101
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1009.0521
- Bibcode:
- 2010PhRvL.105z1101B
- Keywords:
-
- 04.30.Db;
- 04.25.dk;
- 04.25.Nx;
- 95.30.Sf;
- Wave generation and sources;
- Numerical studies of other relativistic binaries;
- Post-Newtonian approximation;
- perturbation theory;
- related approximations;
- Relativity and gravitation;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
- E-Print:
- 4 pages, 2 figures. Version published in Phys. Rev. Lett