QCD Phase Transitions in Binary Neutron Star Mergers: Signatures from multi-modal GW Spectroscopy

We report on multi-modal gravitational wave (GW) signatures of high-density phase transition to deconfined quarks in the context of binary neutron star (BNS) mergers. We employ state-of-the-art, general relativistic hydrodynamics simulations of BNS mergers in quasi-circular and nearly parabolic orbits and consider equations of state that model different treatments to both hadronic and quark matter. We find that such phase transitions robustly act to suppress the one-armed spiral instability in the postmerger remnant and lead to an anti-correlation between the energy carried by the l=2, m=1 GW mode and the energy density gap between the hadronic and quark phase. Consequently, this manifests as a reduced signal-to-noise ratio for the l=2, m=1 mode in the quark case and whose detection could potentially constrain the energy density gap between the phases.