Gravitational waves from inside hybrid neutron stars

This project aims to model the gravitational wave signal from the hadron-quark matter phase transition. The hadron-quark matter phase transition is an astrophysical event in which hadronic matter deconfines into quark matter within the core of a neutron star. It is believed that de-confined quark matter is more energetically stable than hadronic matter at extreme densities, such as those occurring in neutron stars. It is thus believed that the phase transition between hadronic and quark matter can occur spontaneously and release large amounts of energy. As the phase transition progresses throughout the neutron star, neutrino emission causes instabilities in the interface between hadronic and quark matter to develop. These instabilities, combined with the movement of the interface itself, can generate gravitational waves. This project plans to model these waves using full general relativity for the first time. The hope is to determine both the observability of the waves generated and how they are affected by different equations of state for the two forms of matter involved.