Tracing quark and dark matter signals in neutron stars through inspiral stage gravitational waves

The recent detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star merger event offers a unparalleled insight into the dense matter. Meanwhile, the existence of quark matter within neutron stars, potentially forming hybrid stars or even strange quark stars, and the possible presence of dark matter mixed within these compact stars remain a matter of debate. To address this, our study explores the inspiral processes of various binary compact star systems, including binary hybrid stars, binary strange quark stars, as well as their corresponding dark matter-mixed counterparts, to decode the signatures imprinted in inspiral gravitational waves. Our analysis reveals that the inspiral process of hybrid stars and strange quark stars exhibit higher gravitational wave frequencies and longer retarded times than that of traditional neutron stars. Mixing dark matter components into these systems further amplifies these signals, increasing the frequency and extending the inspiral duration even more. These findings highlight the critical roles of dark matter and quark matter in determining the features of inspiral gravitational waves, providing vital clues for future observations. Moreover, our study also suggests the use of inspiral gravitational waves can play an effective tool to decipher the signals of quark and dark matter within neutron stars.