Black hole spectroscopy of collapsing and merging neutron stars
arXiv:2508.15534 · doi:10.1103/hnhc-m4lw
Abstract
Black hole spectroscopy is an important pillar when studying gravitational waves from black holes and enables tests of general relativity. Most of the gravitational-wave signals observed over the last decade originate from binary black hole systems. Binary neutron star or black hole-neutron star systems are rarer but of particular interest for the next-generation ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. These events offer the exciting possibility of studying matter effects on the ringdown of "dirty black holes". In this work, we ask the question: Does matter matter? Using numerical-relativity, we simulate a wide range of collapsing neutron stars producing matter environments, both in isolated scenarios and in binary mergers. Qualitatively, the resulting ringdown signals can be classified into "clean", "modified", and "distorted" cases, depending on the amount of matter that is present. We apply standard strategies for extracting quasinormal modes of clean signals, using both theory-agnostic and theory-specific assumptions. Even in the presence of matter, possible modifications of quasinormal modes seem to be dominated by ringdown modeling systematics. We find that incorporating multiple quasinormal modes allows one to drastically reduce mismatches and errors in estimating the final black hole mass at early times. If not treated carefully, deviations in the fundamental quasinormal mode might artificially be overestimated and falsely attributed to the presence of matter or violations of general relativity.
23 pages, 19 figures. This version corresponds to the accepted version in PRD
References in corpus (36)
- GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
- Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger
- GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
- GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
- Constraints on a phenomenologically parameterized neutron-star equation of state
- Observation of gravitational waves from two neutron star-black hole coalescences
- Can environmental effects spoil precision gravitational-wave astrophysics?
- Inspiral, merger and ring-down of equal-mass black-hole binaries
- Inspiral, merger and ringdown of unequal mass black hole binaries: a multipolar analysis
- Calibration of Moving Puncture Simulations
- Binary Neutron Star Mergers: Dependence on the Nuclear Equation of State
- Testing Approximations of Thermal Effects in Neutron Star Merger Simulations
- Black holes in galaxies: environmental impact on gravitational-wave generation and propagation
- How to move a black hole without excision: gauge conditions for the numerical evolution of a moving puncture
- LISA detections of massive black hole inspirals: parameter extraction errors due to inaccurate template waveforms
- Observation of Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a Compact Object and a Neutron Star
- Destabilizing the Fundamental Mode of Black Holes: The Elephant and the Flea
- Analysis of Ringdown Overtones in GW150914
- Agnostic black hole spectroscopy: Quasinormal mode content of numerical relativity waveforms and limits of validity of linear perturbation theory
- Numerical relativity simulations of neutron star merger remnants using conservative mesh refinement
- Extracting linear and nonlinear quasinormal modes from black hole merger simulations
- Role of black hole quasinormal mode overtones for ringdown analysis
- Modeling differential rotations of compact stars in equilibriums
- Quasinormal modes of black holes embedded in halos of matter
- Reply to Comment on "Analysis of Ringdown Overtones in GW150914"
- Comment on "Analysis of Ringdown Overtones in GW150914''
- Constructing Binary Neutron Star Initial Data with High Spins, High Compactness, and High Mass-Ratios
- Overtones and Nonlinearities in Binary Black Hole Ringdowns
- Perturbations of the Vaidya metric in the frequency domain: Quasi-normal modes and tidal response
- Introduction to Numerical Relativity
- Prospects for Direct Detection of Black Hole Formation in Neutron Star Mergers with Next-Generation Gravitational-Wave Detectors
- Quantifying Systematic Biases in Black Hole Spectroscopy
- Robustness of extracting quasinormal mode information from black hole merger simulations
- The ringdown of a black hole surrounded by a thin shell of matter
- Systematic bias in LISA ringdown analysis due to waveform inaccuracy
- Do black holes remember what they are made of?