Probing neutron stars with the full pre-merger and post-merger gravitational wave signal from binary coalescences

Understand

The gravitational wave signal emitted during the coalescence of two neutron stars carries information about the stars' internal structure.

• During the long inspiral phase the main matter observable is the tidal interaction between the binary components, an effect that can be parametrically modeled with compact-binary solutions to General Relativity.
• After the binary merger the main observable is frequency modes of the remnant, most commonly giving rise to a short-duration signal accessible only through numerical simulations.
• The complicated morphology and the decreasing detector sensitivity in the relevant frequencies currently hinder detection of the post-merger signal and motivate separate analyses for the pre-merger and post-merger data.