Kavli Affiliate: Lee McCuller
| Summary:
Gravitational waves emitted after neutron star binary coalescences and the information they carry about dense matter are a high-priority target for next-generation detectors. Even though such detectors are expected to observe millions of signals, detectable post-merger emission will remain rare. In this work, we explore post-merger detectability and inference through an alternative detector readout scheme for data dominated by quantum-noise, which is the case above $1$,kHz: photon-counting. In such a readout, signals and noise become quantized into discrete distributions corresponding to the detection of single photons measured in a chosen basis of modes. Through simulated data, we demonstrate that photon counting can be efficient even for weak signals. We find $sim1$ in 100 signals with a post-merger signal-to-noise ratio of 0.2 can result in a single photon and thus be detected. Furthermore, after $2times10^4$ signals — equivalent to $10^-2$ to $1.5$ years of observation — photon counting results in a twofold improvement in the measurement of the radius of a $1.6,M_odot$ neutron star. Constraints can be further tightened if the detector classical noise is reduced. Photon counting offers a promising alternative to traditional homodyne readout techniques for extracting information from low signal-to-noise ratio post-merger signals.
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