Searching for Exotic Cores with Binary Neutron Star Inspirals

We study the feasibility of detecting exotic cores in merging neutron stars with ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. We focus on models with a sharp nuclear/exotic matter interface, and assume a uniform distribution of neutron stars in the mass range [1, 2] M. We find that the existence of exotic cores can be confirmed at the 70% confidence level with as few as several tens of detections. Likewise, with such a sample, we find that some models of exotic cores can be excluded with high confidence.