Measuring the Hubble Constant of Binary Neutron Star and Neutron Star–Black Hole Coalescences: Bright Sirens and Dark Sirens

Abstract

Observations of gravitational waves (GW) provide us with a new probe to study the Universe. GW events can be used as standard sirens if their redshifts are measured. Normally, standard sirens can be divided into bright/dark sirens according to whether the redshifts are measured by electromagnetic (EM) counterpart observations. First, we investigate the capability of the 2.5 m Wide-Field Survey Telescope (WFST) to take follow-up observations of kilonova counterparts. For binary neutron star (BNS) bright sirens, WFST is expected to observe 10–20 kilonovae per year in the second-generation GW detection era. As for neutron star–black hole (NSBH) mergers, when a BH spin is extremely high and the neutron star (NS) is stiff, the observation rate is ∼10 per year. Combining optical and GW observations, the bright sirens are expected to constrain the Hubble constant H _0 to ∼2.8% in five years of observations. As for dark sirens, the tidal effects of NSs during merging provide us with a cosmological model-independent approach to measure the redshifts of GW sources. Then we investigate the applications of tidal effects in redshift measurements. We find in the third generation era, the host galaxy groups of around 45% BNS mergers at z < 0.1 can be identified through this method, if the equation of state is ms1, which is roughly equivalent to the results from luminosity distant constraints. Therefore, tidal effect observations provide a reliable and cosmological model-independent method of identifying BNS mergers’ host galaxy groups. Using this method, the BNS/NSBH dark sirens can constrain H _0 to 0.2%/0.3% over a five-year observation period.

Keywords

• Gravitational waves
• Cosmology
• Neutron stars
• Black holes
• High energy astrophysics