Measuring neutron-star distances and properties with gravitational-wave parallax

Abstract

Gravitational-wave astronomy allows us to study objects and events invisible to electromagnetic waves. So far, only signals triggered by coalescing binaries have been detected. However, as the interferometers' sensitivities improve over time, we expect to observe weaker signals in the future, e.g. emission of continuous gravitational waves from spinning, isolated neutron stars. Parallax is a well-known method, widely used in electromagnetic astronomical observations, to estimate the distance to a source. In this work, we consider the application of the parallax method to gravitational-wave searches and explore possible distance estimation errors. We show that detection of parallax in the signal from a spinning down source can constrain the neutron star moment of inertia. For instance, we found that the relative error of the moment of inertia estimation is smaller than $10\%$ for all sources closer than 300 pc, for the assumed birth frequency of 700 Hz, ellipticity $\ge 10^{-7}$ and for two years of observations by the Einstein Telescope, assuming spin down due purely to quadrupolar gravitational radiation.

7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Searches for Continuous-Wave Gravitational Radiation
• The Science of the Einstein Telescope
• Searches for continuous gravitational waves from neutron stars: A twenty-year retrospective
• Gravitational waves from neutron-star mountains
• Universal relations to measure neutron star properties from targeted r-mode searches
• Colloquium: Multimessenger astronomy with continuous gravitational waves and future detectors
• One-stop strategy to search for long-duration gravitational-wave signals
• What are neutron stars made of? Gravitational waves may reveal the answer