2023/05/31 by Horng Sheng Chia, T. Edwards, Chia, Horng Sheng +15 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2306.00050
openalex publication_date 2023/05/31 · openalex created_date 2023/06/04 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report results on the first matched-filtering search for binaries with compact objects having large tidal deformabilities in the LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave (GW) data. The tidal deformability of a body is quantified by the ``Love number" Λ∝ \hskip 1pt (r/m)5, where r/m is the body's (inverse) compactness. Due to its strong dependence on compactness, the Λ of larger-sized compact objects can easily be many orders of magnitude greater than those of black holes and neutron stars, leaving phase shifts which are sufficiently large for these binaries to be missed by binary black hole (BBH) templated searches. In this paper, we conduct a search using inspiral-only waveforms with zero spins but finite tides, with the search space covering chirp masses 3 M_\odot < M < 15 M_\odot and effective tidal deformabilities 102 \lesssim Λ \lesssim 106. We find no statistically significant GW candidates. This null detection implies an upper limit on the merger rate of such binaries in the range [1-300] \hskip 2pt Gpc-3 year-1, depending on M and Λ. While our constraints are model agnostic, we discuss the implications on beyond the Standard Model scenarios that give rise to boson stars and superradiant clouds. Using inspiral-only waveforms we recover many of the BBH signals which were previously identified with full inspiral-merger-ringdown templates. We also constrain the Love number of black holes to Λ\lesssim 103 at the 90% credible interval. Our work is the first-ever dedicated template-based search for compact objects that are not only black holes and neutron stars. Additionally, our work demonstrates a novel way of finding new physics in GW data, widening the scope of potential discovery to previously unexplored parameter space.