Cosmic Calipers: Precision Radius Measurements of Neutron Stars using Next Generation Gravitational Wave Detectors

The inference of the equation of state of neutron stars is one of the primary science goals for the next generation of gravitational wave detectors. The use of universal relations in inferring the state of matter in neutron star cores induces systematic errors in the measurement of the radii of neutron stars. This can lead to an erroneous inference of the equation of state. After correcting for these biases, we infer radii without systematics. We use Bayesian inference on a simulated population of binary neutron stars to show that we can achieve unprecedented precision in measuring the radii of neutron stars with next-generation detectors. Additionally, we study the effect of an unknown astrophysical model of the population of neutron star binaries on the inference of the dense matter equation of state.